Aarg!! - Our Poor New Fruit

Wednesday was a lovely sunny December day but it might have been a bit of a shock to our new raspberry canes and honeyberry bushes. Gone were the mild overnight temperatures and hints of double figures by day. Wednesday morning was frosty, down to 0.3°C, and despite the sunshine for most of the day 6.6°C was as high as it got in the afternoon. Perhaps I should have grown them on in our cold greenhouse after all but it’s too late to worry now. They’ll just have to take their chances.

With more changeable weather forecast towards the weekend I thought a trip to the plot to burn some rubbish would be timely. 

This is part of the pile of rubbish left over from tidying up the overgrown blackberry a few weeks ago. It wasn't exactly dry, still damp from the overnight frost. Luckily I’d taken some cardboard boxes and shredded paper to the plot so decided to give a bonfire a go. I needn't have worried. The rubbish was soon well alight.

It became a question of getting the pile of rotten timber and the like onto the bonfire as quickly as possible. In no time at all the heap of rubbish had all been transferred onto the bonfire.

All I had to do was keep messing about making sure the old bits of wood around the base of the bonfire kept getting replaced back on the centre of the burning heap. It was a lovely warm job on a cold day. A little too warm at times as I had to back off due to the heat from the fire and just let the flames do their own thing.

After an hour or so all that was left was a red hot heap of smouldering wood ash. I reckon that rogue swede in the foreground can be dug up ready roasted. It felt a little bit on the chilly side as I moved away from the warmth of the fire and headed for home.

So far it’s been a very productive week down on the plot for December.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett