Day 21 - Monthly Roundup

I've been interested in the weather from before I started this kitchen garden. Back when I was working at a shop, I noticed that rain meant that there were few customers (always a positive in my eyes as I could use the time for organising the stock). I use Weatherzone for my weather needs, and will continue to until I get one of those fancy $500 weather stations that I've got my eye on!

Weatherzone keeps weather information from 1950 to 2000, and there was one record set this month. The monthly average minimum was 21.6, 0.2 above the record and a quite substantial 1.8 above the average. Must have been all of those wet nights that we've had. The monthly average maximum was 30.2, which was only 0.7 off the record. Apart from that - nothing, although we did receive 172.2mm of rain, which was 140% of the average.

My garden now measures 0.184sqm. I'm now growing six varieties of plants with differing levels of success. The sweet basil plants are going gangbusters - from a 40cm x 10cm plot with three plants I'm picking four or five leaves every day. On the other hand, the coriander is lying down and refusing to get up (I know the feeling well). If the sun that we've been promised next week doesn't fix it, I'm going to think about some stakes to keep it up.

Next month I hope to pick my jalapenos and habaneros and get another lot of flowers blooming. Eleven of my jalapeno seeds have sprouted and I hope to have some success with them. The big issue is the rain. Historically January, February and March are the rainiest months of the year, and my plants don't seem to like the rain that much. We will see what the weather brings.

My predictions for the year ahead: we will receive at least 2000mm of rain as it has always come when I wanted it the least. We will have more than 10 days of 40 degree temperatures even though we didn't receive any from 1950 - 2000. At least one day will get down to freezing, even though it didn't from 1950 - 2000 at all. In short, I'm predicting extreme weather for 2010. Let's see how it turns out!