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Tuesday 22 April 2014

Gardening On Hold

It rained on and off all day on Tuesday. The drop of rain won’t have done the garden and allotment any harm as we’ve not had any rain for a couple of weeks.

The rain cleared away in the early evening when a little bit of sun helped to raise the temperature up to 13.7°C the warmest time of the day.

Even then there were some threatening clouds about but the rain held off for the rest of the evening. The day’s rainfall came to 7.2mm, the wettest day this month but so far with a total of only 20.0mm it’s turning out to be a dry month.

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Decisions Decisions!

Wednesday was a big improvement with some sunny spells and the temperature managed a very respectable 17.6°C. We had some more light rain late on into the evening.

One issue with having grass paths around our beds down on the plot is that at this time of year the grass grows very quickly. Whilst I like the idea of keeping the paths looking reasonable I’m not too fussed if the grass gets a bit long. The trouble is it then takes much longer to cut and get back to looking tidy. Anyhow I decided to spend an afternoon on the plot cutting the grass.

One of our plots that has lots of fruit bushes and trees is almost planted up for summer. Only one small bed remains to be planted up with peas and beans.

I’ve still some more potatoes to plant and I’d really decided that I wasn’t going to plant any more through weed control fabric until we see how our experimental early potatoes perform this year. But…..

The plan for this bed is for a crop of potatoes to be grown in it over summer and then once they are removed it will be planted up with winter onions. It was covered with weed control fabric last autumn and whilst the edges need a little tidying up it would be much easier to plant a couple of rows directly through the fabric rather than remove the fabric, give the soil a quick tiller and then plant our potatoes conventionally. I might go for planting through the fabric after all. I saw last week on Beechgrove Garden they were planning to plant through black plastic sheeting. Should I, shouldn’t I? I’ll have to make a decision in the next few days.

Thursday & Friday 24/25 April 2014

In Search of an Elusive Bittern

Thursday was a lovely sunny day after a drop of overnight rain. Friday in contrast was dull all day with light rain on and off throughout the day.

We decided on a trip to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway as it’s the first weekend of their spring steam gala. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t any better up on the North Yorkshire Moors, not that I was really expecting it to be, in fact it was worse and we ended up by abandoning the outing before we ended up even more soaked than we were .

Wednesday 23 April to Friday 25 April 2014

When the heritage railway are holding a gala they usually arrange for a “visiting star attraction” a locomotive not normally seen on the railway. This gala is no exception especially as the star attraction in question is the fastest steam locomotive of the heritage era. 4464 Bittern made three 90mph trips along the East Coast Main Line last year to commemorate its sister locomotive Mallard’s world record speed of 126mph set in 1938. Bittern is normally restricted to 75mph operating main line charter trains but was granted special permission to exceed this limit on the national rail network on these three occasions. 4464 Bittern now carries a plaque to mark this event.

4464 Bittern with a fully loaded tender of coal and water weighs in at around 165 tons. You would think it wouldn’t be easy to hide something that big but it can also create an enormous amount of steam allowing the locomotive to leave Grosmont station bound for Pickering engulfed in steam and almost hidden from view.

Just as well that we’d managed to capture a few shots of Bittern before it took its place at the front of the train.

By the middle of the afternoon the morning drizzle had turned into heavy rain and we decided to head home before the thoroughly wet weather did some damage to our camera and soaked us to the skin. An hour and a half’s journey in soggy clothes wasn’t something we fancied.  

Saturday 26 April 2014

Roots

Saturday afternoon wasn’t too bad and we decided on a visit to the plot to do a little bit of tidying up. It was just as well we didn’t take any notice of the weather forecast which was for heavy showers for most of the afternoon. We obviously missed them. We’ve had some rain each day now for the last week and it has started to make the allotment beds rather wet and they could do with a few days of good drying weather to get them back into shape. Although its come in bits and pieces it’s amounted to 16.2mm of rain in the last week following on from a dry start to the month.

Our experimental early potatoes planted on 10 April 2014 are just pushing their first shoots through the soil and holes in the weed control fabric.

I’ll take the precaution of moving some straw over to the bed to cover these young shoots if a frost is forecast. These are Casablanca which have beaten Rocket to be the first to show some shoots.

On the plot the last of our over wintering carrots were dug up and cleared away. Most of them only made it to the compost heap but I took pity on a few of the best looking roots and kept them for kitchen use.

We certainly can’t complain about last year’s carrot crop. Sown on 20 April 2013 we harvested our first root of Chantenay Royal by the 24 July and we’ve been harvesting on a regular basis all through winter. Since last July we’ve harvested a rather enormous 49.1kg of carrots.

Without doubt the star performer last year was Chantenay Royal producing some very large good quality roots. St Valery didn’t perform as well as our other varieties and may be on a bit of a trial this year to see if it performs better but to be honest Early Nantes and Chantenay Royal have kept us well supplied in carrots for the last nine to ten months and we have a few in the freezer to help fill the gap to July. I wonder how this year’s carrots will perform.

Sunday 27 April 2014

Slugs and Snails and ….

Sunday turned out dry and mild but we didn’t really have much in the way of sunshine.

The dampish conditions of the last few days certainly seem to helped the slug and snail population. They're bad enough outside but in the greenhouse even worse. I had to think carefully the other day as I looked at a small tray of Tom Thumb lettuces. I was sure they had already germinated but there was nothing to see now. Looking more carefully the tell tale signs were there, a bit of a slime trail  and the barely visible green stumps of chewed off lettuce seedlings. If that wasn’t bad enough a couple of tomato seedlings had come in for the same treatment.

An inspection under one tray revealed one slug laying in wait for darkness and its next meal. It didn’t make that next meal as it met a grizzly end. I couldn’t find any more culprits but the damage was from more than one slug so I resorted to a few carefully placed slug pellets where I thought these pests might emerge from. I was hoping the pellets would stop them in their tracks before they reached our seedlings.

Not a pleasant sight but this snail isn’t going to eat any more of my lettuce plants. It wasn’t the only one as the pellets managed to prevent another snail and 3 slugs from reaching their intended victims.

Aren’t some aspects of gardening wonderful? Here’s the first of our aquilegias to cheer things up.

Monday 28 April 2014

Inca Berry Trial

Monday was a brilliant spring day with lots of sunshine and a temperature of 18.5°C in the afternoon. It’s just a pity that some colder nights are forecast for the weekend with the possibility of frosts. At the moment that threat seems to be limited to Friday and Saturday night with night time temperatures recovering after the weekend.

This year we are experimenting with Inca Berries which we came across from James Wong’s Homegrown Revolution.

So far they are living up to their “easy to grow” tag. They were sown on 7 April and placed under our indoor grow light. Germination took 9 days and since then they’ve grown into sturdy looking seedlings. Monday was the day they took their first step into the outside world moving from the luxury of the indoor growlight to the perils of our outdoor greenhouse.

This tray of 15 Inca Berry plants will be left to grow on in the greenhouse before moving to the cold frame and eventually the allotment plot. They should only be planted outside once there is no risk of a frost. They like a sunny spot with good drainage. All we have to do then is harvest the berries, probably in September. Each berry comes wrapped in its own Chinese lantern.

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Mammoth Seed Sowing Afternoon

On Tuesday the sun was a little later coming out waiting until the early afternoon before making an appearance. By late afternoon the temperature reached 21.1°C our warmest day of the year.

It was far too hot in the greenhouse in the afternoon to be sowing seeds so our mammoth seed sowing session was done outside. Fortunately there was only the lightest of breezes so whilst sowing seed there was no risk of them being blown about in the wind. The full list is shown below.

This was our main flower sowing session. The plan is that once germination takes place flower seeds will be moved outside into the cold frame and more seeds sown. We don’t plan to thin out the seedling but just plant the contents of the pot in the allotment where the plants are to flower.

I did sow more of our choices from James Wong’s Homegrown collection, Cucamelon and Chinese Chives, which we are trying along with Inca Berries for the first time.

Cucamelons are described as grape size watermelons that taste of cucumber with a tinge of lime. Chinese Chives are described as having delicate roast garlic flavoured blossoms and greens.

I’m not sure that we’ve tried eating any flowers before now so Chinese Chives might be a first in more ways than one.

Wednesday 30 April 2014

Frost Precautions

Wednesday was a disappointing end to the month as we expected the dull morning weather to brighten up giving us some warm afternoon sunshine. On Wednesday however it remained dull all day with a little rain early in the evening.

We cleared a couple more beds on the plot but as colder weather with the possibility of early morning frosts is forecast I thought I’d cover our young potato shoots with some straw to give them a little bit of protection against the cold.

A few cold nights are going to give our plants a bit of a shock as they will have become accustomed to much milder temperature. We’ve had quite a run of mild nights with the temperature not falling much below 8°C. Since the 21st of the April night time temperatures have varied between 9.3°C and 7.8°C so a frost will be most unwelcome.

I’ll be making sure our greenhouse tomato plants have a couple of layers of fleece over them as protection. The forecast at the moment is for sunny days following any frosty mornings so greenhouse temperatures should warm up quickly in the sunshine and our tomato plants won’t get too much of a check.

Our peppers are still growing happily cosseted under our indoor growlight. I think I’ll wait now until next week before transplanting these into pots and moving them into the cold greenhouse. I don’t think they’ll suffer from becoming too leggy by next week and hopefully they’ll avoid the worst of the cold nights.