From gorgeous to grotesque!

Friday was another cloudy day but with virtually no breeze it felt pretty mild. We decided on a trip to the plot in the afternoon to do some more tidying up. Our few surviving winter brassicas needed weeding to give the plants that have survived winter a decent chance of producing some cauliflowers next month.

Weeds cleared from winter brassicas

It was also time to dig up the remains of our carrot crop which like most of the brassicas were winter casualties.

There were no signs of any carrots growing and after a few false starts I found a row of rotten Yellowstone carrots. Some of the carrots had changed into yellow liquid which oozed everywhere once the roots were disturbed. This rather disgusting liquid and the remaining rotten carrot root seemed to be an ideal breeding ground for worms.

Something different

Thursday turned out to be another cool cloudy day and once again no rain. It was pleasant enough in the greenhouse and I transplanted some more cabbages and cauliflower seedlings.

In the afternoon I couldn't decide whether to visit the plot to do some more tidying up or do a bit more around the garden. Somehow in the end I finished up doing neither - I've had computer problems with an upgrade to IE9 which doesn't seem to want to work. I attempted to sort out the problem to no avail.

I did notice a long tailed tit making use of our bird bath and decided to try some video, really expecting that by the time I had the camera ready bath time would be over. Well it wasn't quite over as you can judge for yourself if you watch the short video below.

Still no rain

A few days ago the forecast for Wednesday was for heavy rain which turned into the possibility of showers and in the end even the showers didn't materialize. The forecast for the next week doesn't forecast much rain so an exceptionally dry March may well be followed by a dry April. Although it felt pretty cool for most of the day temperatures were around expected for April.

Tomato plants transplanted

I transplanted our second batch of tomato seedlings which had been growing under our indoor grow light. These had been sown in John Innes compost in a 60 cell module. The cell have rather large holes in the bases which resulted in them soaking up too much water from the capillary matting and the young seedlings were trying to grow in John Innes mud. This made transplanting difficult as the compost was two wet to come cleanly out of the individual cells. I think whenever possible it will be best to water the seeds as necessary from the top rather than using the capillary matting.

A comparison with April 2010

Tuesday was cooler than of late. There was a reasonable amount of sunshine but a cool breeze took the edge off the temperatures. There is no doubt that the warm start to April has brought our fruit trees into blossom and leaf much earlier than last year. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, it probably depends on any frost damage to the blossom. The two pictures below show our plum and greengage trees last April and this.

Plum tree comparison So far so good for our tomato seedlings under our new indoor grow light. They have now been pricked out into individual cells and are in our cold greenhouse.  The difference in overnight temperatures will be quite a shock for them.  I've also re-sown some Crimson Flowered broad bean seeds after the last ones were devoured by a hungry mouse. As it happens it wasn't just one mouse as I've now trapped 6 mice over the last 3 nights. Seed trays and other plants are protected by mouse traps to try to protect them from marauding mice during the night. Lots of our brassica seeds have germinated and are ready for potting on. I'm just a little wary as the mouse demolished my last batch of young cabbage plants. Mouse patrol to protect seeds and seedlings

April returns

Monday saw a return to much more typical April weather with a maximum temperature of 16.2°C which is still fairly respectable for April. It was early afternoon when we had our first shower, it's a bit over the top to describe it as a shower, it wet the ground but that was it. A few more showers in the afternoon weren't much better and we managed just 0.2mm of rain. ET measured by my weather station was 1.5mm so it's reasonable to assume that more moisture was lost out of the soil than fell in the showers. 

Tulips coming into bloom in the garden

It just continues

The fine weather continued on Sunday and it gave us a chance to get our new strawberry bed planted up. We finished getting our potatoes planted so all we need now is some rain to help them all settle in.

New strawberry bed planted up

It's not all being plain sailing though as we've suffered another mouse raid in the greenhouse, this time losing all our Crimson Flowered broad beans which have been carefully excavated out of their individual modules. Not just a couple of beans every single one. This is war!!!

Broad bean seeds eaten by mouse

Making the most of the fine weather

Saturday saw a continuation of the fine warm spell of weather. On the plot we planted our early potatoes and all our carrot seeds for this year were sown.

Early potatoes planted

The soil is very dry and we really need some rain to give the ground a good soaking. I reckon the last time we had any appreciable amount of rain was way back on February 25th when we had 11.4mm. Since then we have had just 7.2mm in March and only 1.6mm so far this month.

Just like summer!

Friday turned out to be the warmest day of this excellent spell of weather with the temperature reaching 22.1°C. With sunshine from dawn till dusk it was just like summer. For comparison the first time we managed such a temperature last year was 20th May.

Clear blue sky throughout the day

There wasn't much breeze either which made it a good day for sowing parsnips and avoiding the seeds from blowing all over the plot.