Thought So

The cold dull weather continued through Monday and Tuesday but then, on Wednesday everything changed, well almost everything.the temperature still remained cold but the sun came out to brighten things up and give us hope that spring is on the way.

As I thought earlier in the week the little bit of sunshine brought out the snowdrops which seemed to have been in bud and ready to come out for a couple of weeks now.

The clear skies lasted over night into Thursday giving a sharp frost and a beautiful sunny start to Thursday.

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

Winter’s Holding On

There was no let up in the dull cold weather over the weekend. We did have just the briefest glimpse of the sun on Sunday and although the temperature only managed 4.3°C it was the highest since Tuesday 19 February.

Sadly the forecast for the week doesn't hold out for much of an improvement. Although the temperature may get a little warmer by the end of the week it’s well below expected as we move into March and meteorological spring.

Gardening will be on hold again this week as it’s probable that more harm than good will be done trying to cultivate wet soggy soil. On the positive side our spring bulbs are continuing to make slow progress and I think the cold conditions are probably extending the flowering period of  Katharine Hodgkin.

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

Everything On Hold

The bright sunny weather didn't last and as forecast the last three days have been dull, cold and miserable. The temperature has just about managed to scrape above 0°C during the day but it’s felt extra cold in a bitingly cold east wind.

It means that all gardening tasks have gone on hold until some better days arrive. Fortunately the weather has been dry even though it’s been dull and cloudy. So far we haven’t had a great deal of rain in February so hopefully the soil down on the plot will be drying out a little. 

This chart from my weather station gives an approximation of how much drying out might be going on. ET (mm) isn't my own extra terrestrial but a measure of how much evaporation has taken place from the ground in general. As you can see so far this month we've had 34.2mm of rain and 11.7mm of that is estimated to have evaporated. I’m presuming that as we've had more rainfall than evaporation it’s why the soil on our plot is still wet and tacky. It’s the same story for the year with 83mm of rainfall and only 21.6mm lost to evaporation.

I’m sure some of our early spring bulbs have decided to wait for better weather. A couple of weeks ago I thought our snowdrops would be in flower but they seemed have been in a state of bud ever since then.

I’m sure that once they get a little bit of sunshine and some warmer days they’ll be bursting into bloom.

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

Spring For A Couple of Days

The last few days have been really superb lulling us into a false sense that spring has arrived. We've had plenty of sunshine and very little breeze so although the temperature hasn't managed double figures it’s felt mild especially in the sun. Apparently all is going to change from Wednesday onwards as we get cold dull weather back again. 

This robin certainly thinks spring in here as it’s been singing its heart out from the top of our crab apple tree for the last couple of days. Even when we've been out in the garden he hasn't been deterred keeping up his song to attract a mate.

Making the most of the weather I managed to clear some space in the greenhouse whilst Sue planted some onion and shallot sets into modules to get them started. It may be several weeks before conditions improve enough on the plot to get the ground prepared and left to their own devices in net bags the sets will start to shoot in any case. It goes to reason then that they might as well gets some roots down into a little bit of compost and be planted out when conditions are more favourable. 

At the moment Sue has planted up one tray each of onions Sturon, Red Karmen, Rumba and Stuttgart together with 2 trays each of shallots Golden Gourmet and Red Sun. Once some more space is cleared in the greenhouse some more onions may given an early start.

It was around this date last year when we sowed our celery Victoria F1 and celeriac Giant Prague seeds. All seemed to go pretty well until the seedling eventually got transplanted into the plot. Once there they seemed to grow very slowly and neither produced any worthwhile crop. To be honest they didn't produce any crop at all. We've had a good few attempts to grow these two crops and never had any success. Not to be deterred we’re having yet another go this year. We will try to grow them a little differently to last year but at the moment our technique for this year has yet to be decided.

At the same time our free onion seeds Bedfordshire Champion have been sown to see how these compare with those grown from sets. Celery, celeriac and onion seeds have all been placed under our indoor growlight to give them the best possible start to life. Just a small stick of celery and a celeriac bigger than a walnut would be something of an improvement for us. We can but try.

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

Chitting Potatoes

Sunday was another sunny day, that’s two in a row, we will be getting spoilt.

As the sun lifted the greenhouse temperature to around the 20°C I decided to move our seed potatoes out of the garage and set them to chit in the greenhouse. The potatoes have survived a month in the garage without any problems and it possible to just see the first signs of tiny shoots on some of the earlier varieties.

The tubers were set out in seed trays with the sprouting end uppermost. 

I’m hoping that all my labelling stays in place because there is nothing worse than finding labels have gone missing at planting time. It’s the first time we've had seed potatoes from JBA Potatoes and these look to be of really good quality.

Once all the varieties were set out the trays were placed on the greenhouse shelving for the chits to form. All the trays were covered with a couple of layers of fleece to give some protection from frost.

Hopefully the tubers shouldn't need any more attention until they’re planted out in the first few weeks of April. 

This is our full list of potato varieties for this year which consists mostly of tried and tested varieties along a few new types to us just to see if we can find better tasting and higher yielding varieties than the ones that have earned their place on our tried and tested list.

DT Brown's potatoes can be found here.

Copyright: Original post from Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary 

http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett

Early Carrots

Saturday produced another nice February day and as we hadn't been down to the plot for over a month due to the weather and problems having our gas main replaced we decided on a visit.

I’m not going to dwell on the fact that our over wintering brassicas have been totally decimated by wood pigeons. The only decision to be made is whether or not to net them now and see if they recover and produce some sort of crop. I had my doubts about our remaining carrots left in the ground to over winter.

All they've had for frost protection is some loose straw around the roots. With all the frost, rain and snow of the last few weeks I wouldn't have been surprised if the carrots underneath had turned to mush.

As you can see we’re not too good at thinning out carrots. Once sown they’re left to get on with it. I suppose thinning out might produce better looking carrots but we only want them for the pot not the show bench.

One thing I discovered digging up these roots was that the soil is far too wet to work as it glued itself to my fork as I dug around the carrots. The carrots looked a bit of a mess when first dug having lots of muddy gooey soil sticking to the roots. 

Once washed they didn't look too bad. They have some slug and carrot root fly damage so there is some wastage on the carrots but these are Early Nantes sown last spring as an early crop which have managed to over winter reasonable well without too much effort from me. They still tasted good when cooked which is one of the reasons for growing your own.

It helped make up a little bit for the disappointment of those devastated brassicas but not completely.

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

Brambling

For a while on Friday it felt that spring might just be on the way. Out of the breeze and in the sunshine there was a little bit of warmth in the sun. We couldn't let the opportunity of such a nice day slip by so we paid a visit to one of our favourite RSPB reserves at Old Moor.

Like they usually do on our arrival the star attractions decided to go into hiding but I did manage to get a photograph of a brambling, the first I've ever seen. It’s name suggests to me it ought to be growing on the allotment but in reality it’s a rather pretty little bird. This is a male.

It was rather a long way off so not the best of pictures. The challenge is now to get a much better picture. Unfortunately the weather spoilt itself a little in the afternoon as it clouded over and the light faded quickly making photography a little more tricky.

Of course most of the regulars put in an appearance and we had plenty of pictures to sort through once we got back home. Certainly there were lots of greenfinches making the most of the plentiful supply of food available.

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

Final Potatoes Arrive

Thursday was a massive improvement weather wise. Yesterday’s snow melted overnight as the temperature lifted and we even had a few sunny spells through the day. According to the BBC some places had their warmest February day this year but that wasn't the case for us as we managed a just above average 8.4°C by 13:30.

It didn’t manage to beat the 10.2°C on the 04 February which was rather bizarrely recorded at 03:00.

Our final seed potatoes arrived today from D T Brown. These final two varieties are Vales Emerald which we liked so much last year that we were determined to give it another go and Harmony. This is a new potato to us which we are hoping will provide us with some good size baking potatoes. It’s a Scottish bred early maincrop variety.

Now a milder spell of weather has arrived I think it’s time our seed potatoes came out of the garage and into the greenhouse to start chitting. It’s also time that we planted some onion sets into modules to give them an early start. These will grow on in the greenhouse until space is required for more tender early crops probably some time in April.

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