Chilly For Tomato Sowing

The forecast is for it to become a bit milder before turning cold again. All I can say is that I hope it hurries up or we're in danger of missing out on the warm stuff. Monday certainly wasn't very warm and a stiff cold wind made it feel even cooler.

For various reasons I'm sowing my tomato seeds a few weeks later than I normally do. Each year I find that they need to move from indoor heated growlight into unheated greenhouse too early when the temperature in the greenhouse isn't warm enough for them to grow on unchecked. This year they're being sown a couple of weeks later. I'm hoping we'll be having some decent warm weather by the time they've germinated and are ready to move into the greenhouse.

It was a bit of a hectic afternoon in the greenhouse as I sowed our tomato seeds, aubergines and parsley before pricking out some Little Gem lettuce seedlings. Some lettuces have been left in the greenhouse and some planted out in our raised salad bed to hopefully produce some salad leaves or full size lettuces.

Sue sowed a few more flower seeds just for good measure some going alongside the tomatoes in our indoor growlight and some remaining in the greenhouse to germinate. I think the table below covers our sowing and planting activities for the day.

We need to get on sorting out some beds on the allotment before more rain arrives.

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

Late Chill on Saturday

I didn't notice at first that Saturday's chilly conditions were a sort of record for my weather station. The average temperature  on Saturday was a rather pathetic 4.8°C (40.6°F) despite some decent sunny spells.

That's the coldest average daily temperature so far into the year over the last seven years. The temperature on Sunday morning fell to 0.7°C (33.3°F) although that's not unusually cold for the middle of April.

Our latest frosts dates over the last few years are 06 May 2012 when the temperature fell to -1.0°C (30.2°F) and 16 May 2013 with 3.1°C (37.6°F).

I notice the forecasters are suggesting the possibility of another cold snap next weekend with a chance of it extending into the following week. We might have had a very mild winter but I'm not sure how much of an advantage that is to a gardener. Now when we could do with some warmer weather, as we head into a busy time in the garden and greenhouse, it turns cold.

Over the last few months we've noticed that our goldfinches have been missing from the garden. On Sunday though we spotted a couple back eating sunflower hearts.

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

More On Our Exotics

Saturday wasn't a particularly good day despite some sunny spells. We had a little bit of hail over lunchtime and it remained cold all day with a cool wind blowing.

As you will know from yesterday's blog I repotted our fig trees and moved them out of the greenhouse. I'll take this opportunity to do an update on the progress of our grapevine, nectarine, peach and apricot fruits all growing in our cold greenhouse.

First of all our grapevine Himrod is now starting to shoot.

Grape Himrod

Of our other exotics the apricot Flavourcot was the earliest into flower and Sue's done a fine job of substituting for a bee and pollinating those early flowers.

Apricot Flavourcot

Our nectarine and peach flowered later and didn't have anything like as many flowers as the apricot. At first it didn't look as though any of the flowers were going to set fruit but now we're a bit more optimistic.

Nectarine Fantazia

Peach Avalon Pride

The apricot has set so many fruits that it's now possible to see that some of the immature fruits are ready to fall off the tree.

Things are looking very good at the minute though.

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

To Prune Or Not To Prune

Friday was dull and cool with a north easterly wind blowing which didn't do anything to improve matters.

I've been planning to repot our potted fig trees for sometime now. They have spent the last few years in the greenhouse and have produced a small crop each year.

Now we have a nice sheltered spot in the courtyard garden I thought it might be a good time to see how they get on outside. I thought growing in the greenhouse they might produce two crops a year but that hasn't been the case so I'm hoping they'll produce a single crop outside.

They certainly took some getting out of their old pots although I didn't think that they appeared too pot bound. They're both now potted on and in their new location.

I couldn't decide whether to cut the main stem of the smaller fig back by about a half.

It has grown out of proportion to the rest of the tree. Cutting it back would keep the tree in a more compact form. I'm going to give it a bit more thought.

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

Time For Plan B

Wednesday turned out to be our warmest day of the year so far reaching 16.7°C or 62.1°F.

Some of the grass paths on the plot were in desperate need of strimming so as it was dry on Wednesday afternoon it seemed like a good opportunity to get the job done.

I wasn't really planning on getting any other jobs done but in the back of my mind was the need to prepare the bed for our early brassicas. Tuesday's rain had put an end to any hopes of digging over the ground. I loaded my trusty three pronged hoe into the car as I had a plan B in mind if I had some time to spare after strimming the grass.

After strimming the grass and a welcome cup of afternoon coffee I decided to try Plan B. I was hoping that the top of the soil would hoe and create a suitable depth to allow us to plant our brassicas. After all they are supposed to appreciate firm ground. My plan seemed to work okay. I didn't want to disturb the wetter and claggier soil beneath as this wouldn't break down into any sort of tilth. Who knows by the middle of summer the plants might be glad of all that moisture retained lower down in the soil.

After hoeing through the bed once I added lime then fish, blood and bone. Then all this was given another good hoeing to incorporate it into the soil. Some slug pellets were sprinkled over the soil before the whole bed was covered with weed control fabric and weighed down with three barrow loads of partially rotted wood chips.

We'll now have to see what our brassicas make of the compromise once they are planted out.

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

Not Drying Out Much!

It's lived up to the forecast over the last couple of days. Monday wasn't too bad with some decent sunny spells and feeling very pleasant in the sun and out of the breeze. We didn't have much in the way of rain either. Tuesday on the other hand was a different matter. The morning dawned a little bit dull and drizzly but any hopes that that would clear away were dashed around mid morning when the rain set in.

The rain didn't stop until late afternoon by which time the daily amount had risen to 8.2mm (0.32").

When we left the plot on Sunday teatime we were hoping for some dry weather so the bed earmarked for our early cabbages (Duncan), cauliflower (Mayflower) and calabrese (Marathon) could be prepared ready to get them planted. It was a bit too wet on Sunday and I'm not anticipating that Tuesday's rain will have helped matters much.

When these plug plants arrived from Marshalls seeds they weren't the best of plug plants. They were potted on and left to grow on in the greenhouse.

Plug plants 18 March 2016 after potting up

Now I'm pleased to say they've improved a lot and are ready to move to the coldframe to acclimatise to outdoor conditions before finally being transplanted out on the plot.

Plug plants 13 April 2016 ready to move to coldframe

All that needs to be done now is get a patch of ground done on the plot ready for them to move home sometime next week.

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

Brilliant Weekend

For us this was a brilliant weekend. For the last six weeks we've had the worry of cancer hanging in the air. In Saturday's post I got the results that the biopsies I'd had taken showed no evidence of cancer. What a relief!! The last six weeks has been a very, very long six weeks.

The weather was decent over the weekend too with plenty of sunny spells and only a drop of rain late on Saturday evening. On the plot that gave us chance to get our early potatoes, Casablanca planted. I would have like to have dug over a bed earmarked for our early brassicas bought from Marshalls but the soil was too wet and claggy so I decided it was better left to dry out a little. Looking at the weather forecast for next week that might be a little bit optimistic.

We spent some time continuing our spring tidy up, a bit of weeding, strimming and edge trimmer. By the time we left on Sunday afternoon parts of the plot looked fairly tidy especially with our fruit bushes starting to leaf up.

Now we need that weather forecast to be wrong.

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

Just Right

Friday was another day of sunny spells but once again it often threatened heavy showers which didn't materialise. It did keep us from doing any gardening. I really do need to get the grass cut again if only it would dry out.

It's a few years ago that I did a hatchet job on one of our camellias. Unfortunately it had grown too well and was crowding out other plants. With that in mind back in the summer of 2011 I decided a bit of pruning was required. When I'd finished our camellia looked like this.

After pruning in August 2011

Now five years on it's back at its very best.

April 2016

The trouble is that it can't be allowed to get much larger or it will once again be taking up too much space. I'm hoping that some careful pruning rather than a major hacking session will keep it in bounds.

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