Walking the dogs yesterday at about midnight before retiring I noticed a chill in the air which would not have been out of place in mid September.
The sky was clear with almost all of the stars in the whole universe visible to the naked eye. I stood and watched for several minutes as the dogs went about their business.
Two fast moving satellites passed overhead - I do wonder sometimes, as far as we know they are satellites, a serious suggestion is high altitude space travel from another world.
Two shooting starts whizzed past and onto their final earthly resting place and the Milky Way shone strongly North-east to South west.
This morning on rising the air temperature felt just as fresh with the low sun on the sunflowers glowing and lighting up their faces.
There is a patch of clover on the stressed grass adjacent to the farm track and it was white, almost as though a frost had descended during the night.
This was dew, a fairly uncommon sight in July when you would not expect a chill air in the evening.
Normally, there would be a warm humidity and a restless sleepless night.
Lawn owners beware because that dew can bring problems. A layer of dew on the grass acts like a greenhouse causing the temperature to rise and with the humidity brings the risk of disease.
Red Thread Snow Mould and Fusarium are probably the most prolific during humid spells (although Red Thread is mainly attributed to a lack of Nitrogen fertiliser). If you have spent many hours preparing and caring for the grass then a little 5 minute job needs doing just after you put the kettle on for the first coffee of the morning.
Just like the greenkeeper would switch (sometimes called swish) the dew from the top of golfer greens) you need to disturb the film of water before the sun rises and starts to heat the surface.
I used a six foot drag brush on my lawn of about 200 square metres which took about 2 mins.
Dragging a length of hose pipe across achieves the same result or a wide piece of old carpet nailed to a piece of batten to keep it rigid.
Using a hose pipe, anchor one corner with something heavy and draw the other end around in an arc and watch the dew being disturbed (if it is full of water all the better.
The lawn will now dry quickly as the sun moves overhead and avoid what could be an ugly and expensive attack of fungal disease.
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