Well, that was just about the worst Easter I can remember. There I was, poised with chitted new potatoes ready to go, and the snow started to fall. And kept on falling.
It's bitter cold weather like this that has me grinding my teeth in frustration. I almost always succumb and start sowing seeds far earlier (which means in colder weather) than I should do. I've got a bit wise to this and am now armed with assorted cloches, fleece and bubblewrap to cover the seedlings with, but I expect given this awful weather I shall have some failures again. It always seems as though delays will kibosh all your best-laid plans, and there will never be time to catch up - mostly of course this doesn't happen at all, and you still end up with a full allotment by June, but it's hard to find that thought very convincing right now.
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Taking cover
When the weather's at its worst - and let's face it, it has been for the last week or so - this is where I retreat to. It's my greenhouse, technically speaking not on the allotment but in my back garden. I did experiment with raising seeds in my allotment greenhouse, but I couldn't reliably get up there often enough and lost a lot when the weather turned warm.
So these days I sow dozens of trays of seedlings where I can keep an eye on them - as you can see, it's almost full and the sowing season hasn't really got into top gear yet! I have no idea where I'm going to put the seeds I intend to sow next week. I've already decided to direct-sow more than I usually do this year - leeks, for example, carrots and broad beans have been deemed tough enough to fend for themselves out on the plot. But most veg I raise in modules simply because that way, you can stop most things eating them, keep an eye on watering and growing rates and generally mollycoddle them until they're big enough to look after themselves.
Another somewhat overlooked benefit of greenhouses is that you can retreat in there in rainy weather, so you can carry on allotment gardening even in the worst of downpours. Essential equipment, I'd say - I just need a bigger one!
Friday, September 14, 2007
The long wet summer
Well what with school hols haven't been around much lately - or rather, I've been around the allotment more than ever, just haven't had time to write about it!
It's been the longest, wettest summer any of us can remember. Everyone else seems to be complaining about it - is it just me who's having a bumper year?! My tomatoes are coming off the vine by the bucketload (literally - stewed up 2kg yesterday and picked another 1.5kg today). The beans have been beautiful, long, straight and full of flavour, I've had hundreds of courgettes and the longest cucumber in history (well, OK, slight exaggeration - but in my gardening history, at any rate!) And I've even grown calabrese successfully for the first time ever.
The only slight negative has been the blight that hit my crop of second early potatoes. But even that I'm putting down to the particular susceptibility of that variety (Kestrel). My first earlies, Red Duke of York, were fantastic, though you wouldn't expect them to get blight in any case. The Kestrel were about 50% ruined - a horrible, smelly, unpleasant job that meant I was eyeing my maincrop, King Edward, with dismay, convinced they too would have succumbed. Not a bit of it: despite the fact that King Edwards have a reputation for small yields and for being disease-prone, not one plant was blighted and I've got two full bucketloads in store in paper sacks in my understairs cupboard. That's from one bed of 4ft x 11ft (I didn't get the second bed dug over in time for two crops, sadly). You can't complain about that too much: I'll be keeping a close eye on them in storage, as I'm still not entirely sure they won't have blight spores clinging here and there, but I was so pleased with them.
Wet summers? Let's have more of them!
It's been the longest, wettest summer any of us can remember. Everyone else seems to be complaining about it - is it just me who's having a bumper year?! My tomatoes are coming off the vine by the bucketload (literally - stewed up 2kg yesterday and picked another 1.5kg today). The beans have been beautiful, long, straight and full of flavour, I've had hundreds of courgettes and the longest cucumber in history (well, OK, slight exaggeration - but in my gardening history, at any rate!) And I've even grown calabrese successfully for the first time ever.
The only slight negative has been the blight that hit my crop of second early potatoes. But even that I'm putting down to the particular susceptibility of that variety (Kestrel). My first earlies, Red Duke of York, were fantastic, though you wouldn't expect them to get blight in any case. The Kestrel were about 50% ruined - a horrible, smelly, unpleasant job that meant I was eyeing my maincrop, King Edward, with dismay, convinced they too would have succumbed. Not a bit of it: despite the fact that King Edwards have a reputation for small yields and for being disease-prone, not one plant was blighted and I've got two full bucketloads in store in paper sacks in my understairs cupboard. That's from one bed of 4ft x 11ft (I didn't get the second bed dug over in time for two crops, sadly). You can't complain about that too much: I'll be keeping a close eye on them in storage, as I'm still not entirely sure they won't have blight spores clinging here and there, but I was so pleased with them.
Wet summers? Let's have more of them!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
From deluge... to drought
Talk about extremes of weather.
Having spent most of the winter under water, I'm now having to get out the watering can again - we've had nearly four weeks without any rain and with 20+ degree temperatures. It's lovely if you like sunbathing, not so nice if you have young plants to nurture.
As a result my carrot sowings have almost entirely failed - I'm having a go at sowing them direct, which is not something I usually do but on the other hand it's the normal way of growing carrots so I thought I'd try it. Of course I haven't been able to keep the rows watered, so that's about the only reason they've keeled over (or rather, haven't germinated in the first place).
Never mind - I'll keep going when - or rather if - the rains come again, and hope for more success then. On the plus side, my baby plants are shooting up: I now have tomato plants a couple of feet high and very, very healthy waiting to go in my greenhouse border in mid-May; the peas are starting to form pods already (well, they are Feltham First); and the broad beans are looking lovely, strong and healthy. I've got quite a few brassicas in modular trays hardening off in the coldframe ready to go out in a week or two - my brussels sprouts sowing failed, mainly I think because the seed had been kept a bit too long, so I had to buy in 12 from my garden centre which is another first so we'll see how they do.
Busy, busy, busy! I do love this time of year.
Having spent most of the winter under water, I'm now having to get out the watering can again - we've had nearly four weeks without any rain and with 20+ degree temperatures. It's lovely if you like sunbathing, not so nice if you have young plants to nurture.
As a result my carrot sowings have almost entirely failed - I'm having a go at sowing them direct, which is not something I usually do but on the other hand it's the normal way of growing carrots so I thought I'd try it. Of course I haven't been able to keep the rows watered, so that's about the only reason they've keeled over (or rather, haven't germinated in the first place).
Never mind - I'll keep going when - or rather if - the rains come again, and hope for more success then. On the plus side, my baby plants are shooting up: I now have tomato plants a couple of feet high and very, very healthy waiting to go in my greenhouse border in mid-May; the peas are starting to form pods already (well, they are Feltham First); and the broad beans are looking lovely, strong and healthy. I've got quite a few brassicas in modular trays hardening off in the coldframe ready to go out in a week or two - my brussels sprouts sowing failed, mainly I think because the seed had been kept a bit too long, so I had to buy in 12 from my garden centre which is another first so we'll see how they do.
Busy, busy, busy! I do love this time of year.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Rain, rain, go away
This is a horribly frustrating time of year to have an allotment. It's been either snowing or raining for weeks now, and there's standing water on the lower "slopes". The soil is totally unworkable, cold and uninspiring. It's all a bit depressing.
I'm diverting myself by chopping up holly to put around my little baby pea plants. Something is eating them, and I can't work out whether it's slugs or mice - probably a bit of both. So I'm cracking open the slug pellets (I use the organic ones - they look the same but don't kill the birds). As for the mice, I'm trying a little tip I got from Carol Klein's veggie programme (not a favourite as it keeps whizzing off into irrelevant camera effects, but you do get the odd useful tip). She suggests putting holly all over baby peas & beans since mice find it too prickly to walk over. So far it seems to be working OK and is also providing something for the little pea plants to climb over - so with a bit of luck it should save them.
I'm diverting myself by chopping up holly to put around my little baby pea plants. Something is eating them, and I can't work out whether it's slugs or mice - probably a bit of both. So I'm cracking open the slug pellets (I use the organic ones - they look the same but don't kill the birds). As for the mice, I'm trying a little tip I got from Carol Klein's veggie programme (not a favourite as it keeps whizzing off into irrelevant camera effects, but you do get the odd useful tip). She suggests putting holly all over baby peas & beans since mice find it too prickly to walk over. So far it seems to be working OK and is also providing something for the little pea plants to climb over - so with a bit of luck it should save them.
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