September turned out to be a disappointing month overall, with often grey skies, turning in the lowest light levels we’ve ever recorded for the month. Even allowing for a slight drop-off in PV efficiency in our PV panels over time.

Rainfall for the month was fairly typical of our recent experience, with few very heavy rainfall events, but only 7 dry days.

At least a few of these came in a row from about the 14th, which meant that at last after over 18 months of trying, we managed to get most of the external paintwork finished. We were also relieved and delighted to get a couple of lovely replacement shutter doors supplied and fitted by Cyrus and Sam to the very highest standard of workmanship and finish. We’re sure they’ll keep rodents from trying their luck with gaining entry and have made a huge difference already to the warmth inside.

The Hydrangeas have continued to provide much flower interest, along with the ever reliable Persicaria vaccinifolia and Dahlia merckii.

As we head towards the time of year when we say goodbye to our crop of ram lambs, they’re looking a good as good a bunch as we’ve ever managed, and still have lots of grass left to finish them off, before a new tup arrives in the middle of next month.

In what’s been our most disappointing year for a long time for apples, I did at least manage to collect a few full boxes to go into store towards the end of the month on a dry day.

There was little of note on the honey bee front, except one of the colonies, our ‘stump hive’ – hive 5 in the video below, which has survived just for over 3 years seemed to have failed towards the end of August.

We managed to cut, rake and remove the (mainly) sharp-flowered rush from the long lower wet meadows throughout the month, as well as beginning to re-open some of the ditches in these fields.

A surprising and noticeable feature of the garden has been the very slow beginnings of any autumn colour this year. Typically, Sorbus ‘Olympic Flame’ and Acer ‘Aconitifolium’, are in the vanguard. This year, even by the end of the month, the Acer is only just beginning to colour up, and the Lilium speciosum ‘album’ flowers are also only just beginning to open.

Much time was spent continuing to cut, remove and spread green hay into the lower fields throughout the first week of September. By the end of the month, many pink wax caps were beginning to emerge, particularly in the steep field, in what seems to be a generally poor month for them.

In spite of the often grey skies, we’ve always seen enough sunshine, blue skies, and sunrises to lift the spirits.

The weather summary for the month, since I’ve recorded such details is shown below – an extremely variable month as with many calendar months here. An average for any of the parameters I measure is clearly likely to be wide of the actual mark in many years.

The Met Office summary for the month highlights just how poor a month it was for many regions of the UK, with several counties of central England having their wettest ever September – although not so bad for North West Scotland!

2014: 13.7 mm 24 dry days (!) NA

2015: 105.8 mm 13 dry days 354.6 KWH

2016: 173.5 mm 10 dry days 272.9 KWH

2017: 237.5 mm 6 dry days 264.7 KWH

2018: 172.1 mm 9 dry days 307 KWH

2019: 202.2 mm 9 dry days  333 KWH

2020: 116.6 mm  16 dry days 351.9 KWH

2021: 143.8 mm 14 dry days 293 KWH

2022: 205.6 mm 13 dry days 294 KWH

2023: 223.9 mm 7 dry days 294.9 KWH

2024: 156 mm 7 dry days 254 KWH