Cold & Grey

Tuesday morning started off sunny but by lunchtime it had turned into another cold grey February day. It didn't get very warm all day (max 3.3°C) and by midnight Tuesday the temperature had fallen to -3.5°C. It continued to fall to -5.6° by 03:00 Wednesday morning before beginning to warm up slightly so that by day break it was only -2.6°C.

The sunshine on Monday tempted me outside, well into the greenhouse at least as the early afternoon sun lifted the greenhouse temperature up to a positively balmy 14°C. There’s plenty of tidying up to do to remove the remnants of last years crops. The old tomato grow bags need to be cleared out and taken down to the plot to be added as compost to this year’s potato beds.

Our grapevine always manages to get unruly despite my best efforts with the secateurs. The first essential job was to cut back the remaining old vines and tidy up all the dead fallen leaves to give the vine a good spring clean. There was a surprising amount of debris once the vine was cut back to the main stem and the leaves gathered together.

The old gnarled stem looked much better once it was trimmed back. I'm always amazed that this rather dead looking vine will be growing out of control come summer.

Once all the debris had been removed the greenhouse was already starting to take on a tidier look - well one side of the path - ready for some serious growing to get started when the weather begins to warm up. Next job sort out the rubbish on the left of the path, that’s the bit out of shot.