I’m a “has bean”

This week: I’m a “has bean”; Dealing with damp; What will the weather be like in…?;

The tail end of Storm Boris arrived this week, with close to 37mm of rainin 24 hours.

This is nothing when compared to the deluge which swamped the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Slovenia and Northern Italy.

More than a month’s worth of rain fell in 24 hours, (464mm, almost half a metre!) swelling streams into raging torrents.

There is simply nowhere for that amount of water to go.

Austria has been badly affected by both snow and rain. Two metres of snow fell in the high Alpine regions whilst low lying areas ere inundated.

More than 30 people are known to have died across Europe.

With the passing of the storm, here in Dol we are back to warm and sunny weather- the sort of weather which is normal for September.

I’ve been doing more work in the Konoba, also trying to finish a manuscript for a new Monograph and doing odd jobs getting ready for winter.

In the Konoba, once again it was about trying to fix shelves to the wall. One easy job was when I found I could attach a rail to the ceiling joist. Albeit with a wedge to make it level!

Then I needed to drill three holes in two stones to take wall plugs.

This was a long job, because I used three different size drill bits, so the holes were both accurate and didn’t crack the stone.

When it was finished, a check with a spirit level confirmed I had got it right…

Then there were some little jobs like preparing kindling for the wood stove.

Tomorrow the 22nd September is the northern autumnal equinox, the day when the earth in its annual orbit around the sun begins to rush headlong towards the northern winter.

I don’t like cold!

I’m a “has bean”

Since I planted my Fava / Broad Bean seeds last week, I have been checking night and morning for the first signs of growth.

We have had rain, both warm and cool winds and hot sunshine. Even after the rain, the top layer of the soil has already dried out.

On Tuesday, just after tea, I did my usual round of the orchards and polytunnel, and the only things I could see were weedlings starting to grow where I planted the beans.

On Wednesday morning, when I checked the kitchen garden, just a single bean shoot had broken through the soil, its cotyledons still fused together. So that is just 7 days.

Checking the polytunnel, there were several bean shoots in the same state.

Two things to note here. When I soaked the beans in water for 24 hours, I was surprised how quickly some of the bean seeds had developed their radicle root. The most advanced beans I planted in the polytunnel, with just a few in the kitchen garden.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that several have popped up in the polytunnel, but only one had appeared in the outdoor garden.

I did say last week that although I am recording the key milestones, this is not a scientific study.

There are two varieties of beans, so the next key events with be the development of the first real leaves and the second variety popping their heads above the soil.

By the weekend, almost all the beans in both beds are now above soil level, with several bean shoots in the polytunnel measuring over 13cm.

I deliberately planted them in the “Goldilocks zone”, where they get rain which comes through the shade netting and also filtered sunlight.

So I do expect them to be ahead of the outdoor plants.

This next week I will have to attack the grass which has sprouted too. I have some Sweet Potato tubers to plant as well.

I’m well on the way to having beans!

Dealing with damp

I happened to go into one of my buildings this week and as soon as I opened the door, I could smell the damp.

This is a subterranean store where I have various boxes and some furniture. When I pulled a couple of the boxes out, I saw I had a real problem.

Two walls of this Konoba are completely under ground and one is partially under ground, but the walls were treated to prevent damp.

Part of the problem has been that there has been no air movement.

I have a small dehumidifier machine, which I set going and I have been emptying the 1.5 litre tank twice a day. That alone shows the extent of the problem.

The machine, combined with leaving the door open during the day, should go some way to resolving the damp. However I think I will have to leave the dehumidifier on for most of the winter.

In previous years, our autumn wet period, up to Christmas, has always seen heavier rain that the January to March quarter.

Once damp finds a way in, it is very difficult to get rid of it. But it looks like I have another job to add to the winter’s list.

What will the weather be like in…?

I had a conversation with my next door neighbour this week about the weather.

I’ve had a personal weather station at home since the mid 1980’s, so for around forty years. My current stations – I have a 15 year old model and a 2022 model – upload data every 5 minutes of every day to multiple international meteorological organisation and their super computers.

All this data comes back to me as a personalised weather forecast for my area of the island of Hvar.

I put this back into the local community with a Facebook weather page where I provide a detailed weekly forecast every Friday, and an update on Tuesday and any severe weather warnings in between.

My neighbour who has large numbers of Olive trees, a winery and in the summer Lavender, wanted to know what the weather will be like for the olive harvest next month.

The short answer is I simply do not know, nor does anyone else. I can tell you what the weather will be like on Thursday afternoon next week, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, but beyond 10 days the forecast is too inaccurate to be of any use. Don’t let anyone try and persuade you otherwise.

The super computers which model weather are unable to agree on what the coming winter will be like.

One model says it will be milder than in previous years, another says it will be colder. So two opposite ends of a long continuum!

Wherever in the world you are when you read this, your weather will be affected by local micro climates, just as your garden will have a cold spot which always gets some frost and a hot corner where tender plants thrive.

There is an area of Stari Grad, just down the road from Dol, which is called Šiberija Ulica – Siberia Street – because in winter it is so darn cold…

The North Atlantic Oscillation or NAO, affects the weather across Europe through its control of the strength and direction of winds and storms. This is not the same as the Gulf Stream we all know about.

In a positive NAO there is low pressure to the north over Greenland and a high-pressure zone below from the U.S. to Europe.

In winter, this pattern brings warmer temperatures and less snow to the eastern United States and most of Europe. Overall, this is not what you want to see if you are a fan of snow and winter in the U.S. or Europe.

In a negative NAO, there is high pressure to the north over Greenland and a low-pressure zone below from the U.S. to Europe.

In winter, this pattern brings cold temperatures and snow to the eastern United States and most of Europe. 

The NAO is affected through the Jet Stream by the Pacific Ocean, which at the moment is in a cooling phase, a La Niña – the girl child, the opposite of El Niño – and this will affect weather across the globe.

Just to add to this mix, the high level winds above the equator, called the Quasi-Biannual Oscillation, or more simply called QBO, are about to reverse their 17 month cycle of west to east direction, to a east to west flow. When that is combined with a La Niña, you tend to get a negative NAO.

The problem is that the super computers making the forecast can’t agree yet, because a lot of winter data is old and recent climate changes are not showing much effect.

So the answer to the question of “What will the weather be like at the end of October?”, is I don’t know, but I CAN tell you it will rain here in Dol on Tuesday…. NCG