01.10. October heat record!

OK, so now it’s official; we broke the temperature record today! The record has been broken for the highest temperature recorded in October in England - now at 29.9C. It was set at 14:42 BST in Gravesend, Kent, beating the previous record of 29.4C recorded on 1 October 1985, in the small town of March, Cambridgeshire. Temperatures in England topped those in Athens, Los Angeles and Barcelona today. In my garden however, it was 31 degrees at 3 pm today, making it a rather hot and sticky environment for my planned gardening.

I finished the bed on the right side yesterday, and my plan was to continue on the left side today. I almost didn’t start; I almost ended up just lounging in the shade doing nothing, using the heat as an excuse, but then I could not just leave it and had to make a start at least. This is how the bed looked earlier this year, just so you know what I started with, and again – the aim is to make the beds bigger and deeper, get rid of the pots and the grass and create just a small walk-way further down in the garden. That way I will also get room for lots more plants :-)

Here is the bed, stripped for all the pots and with newly trimmed plants. The rose will be cut down too, probably tomorrow, although October trimming of roses is not advisable in London, as it is just too warm still at this time of year. Ha, tell me about it! Well, even with the normal 15-18 degrees it is still too warm to start cutting down roses, they will get a frantic growth spurt and it might weaken them ahead of the winter. But, I am going to take that chance with this particular rose, as I need to cut it down to get access, simple as that. Sometimes you don’t really have a choice, and anyway, this is a well established, old rose, I think it can take it :-)

And here is the bed at lunchtime today, with buckets and buckets of water poured over it, very carefully so it wasn’t going to spread too much, but stay where I wanted to dig. The water helps to loosen up the ground, as it is compact and hard as concrete and impossible to dig into. After a few hours and several more watering trips I was able to start digging the trench for the log-roll fence, but by the time I went inside for the evening it was way too dark to take any photos so you will have to see the next step on my next post!

I am knackered after today so this is it for tonight, just wanted to tell you about the progress, more photos when there is something to show. Until next time, take care :-)