Friday 01 April 2016
A Cold Wet March
The first day of April wasn't anything special with a dull start to the month and some light drizzle at times. It was a cold start to the day as overnight the temperature fell to 0.0°C or 32.0°F.
March turned out to be a cool month for Ossett with only the bitterly cold and snowy March of 2013 been colder over the last six years. The average temperature for March was 6.3°C or 43.3°F.
It was also a wet month turning out to be the wettest March over the last six years with 79.0mm (3.11") of rainfall. We'll need a dry spell of weather to help the plot dry out ready for spring planting.
It wasn't a windy month for us which makes a welcome change. High pressure dominated through the middle of the month bringing us some settled weather but which was often cloudy rather than sunny. Perhaps the weather will pick up a bit for April so that we can get on with some sowing and planting.
Saturday & Sunday 02/03April 2016
The Ossett Gravel Snail
It wasn't too bad a weekend with Sunday the much better of the two days and becoming the warmest day this year nudging the year's highest temperature up to 15.9°C or 60.6°F.
I'm sure like us most gardeners are troubled by slugs and snails devouring seedlings and young plants as well as mature crops. Now one of the solutions suggested by many a TV gardening expert is to put some grit around young plants as slugs and snails don't like crawling over any sharp materials. Perhaps eggshells are supposed to work the same way.
Well a bit of sharp gravel doesn't deter the Ossett Gravel Snail. Want proof?
Clearly a little bit of sharp gravel is no deterrent at all to this particular snail. I found it crawling up the side of the garage this morning. I'm not sure what it's looking for to eat other than a bit of alga from the surface of the gravel.
One thing for sure is it's a long way down.
Monday 04 April 2016
End of the Crop
A rather strange day weather wise. We had a little bit of overnight rain which dried up slowly through the morning. By lunchtime occasional sunny spells were developing and we decided to do a little bit of tidying up outside at home. Then some thunder in the afternoon but no more rain. I decided to sort out the last of our overwintering potatoes, onions and shallots stored in the garage. There were quite a few casualties fit only for the council recycling bin. Some onions had lost their insides completely and only some dry outer skins remained whilst other were a mushy mess. The best were saved and hopefully they'll last us a few more weeks.
There's always a few spiders about in the garage but this one struck me as being a bit on the large side. Once disturbed it headed for the freedom of outdoors very quickly and it certainly didn't want its photo taking.
It was then back to sorting out the last of the potatoes. Lots had started to shoot and were only fit for the recycling bin but I managed to salvage a box full which didn't look too bad. For good measure I removed any shoots that had started to grow.
As soon as we get chance we'll be planting our first early potatoes on the plot. Hopefully this will be in the next couple of weeks.
Tuesday & Wednesday 05/06 April 2016
Typical April Weather
Tuesday was a cool, cloudy day and windy at times. Wednesday was much more typical of what we expect in April with showers through the day and into the evening.
The showers were certainly short and sharp with one particular shower of hail almost turned our little pebble garden white.
The leaves of the daffodils were struggling to stay upright in the gale force wind that blew whilst the hail lasted. In between the showers we had some decent sunny spells but it felt cool outside in the breezy conditions.
Thursday 07 April 2016
Staying In Day
Thursday was another mixed sort of a day with some sunny periods but we often had dark clouds threatening heavy showers. We certainly had fewer showers than Wednesday but the temperature was disappointing and in the breezy weather it didn't feel so warm outside.
It was a day for doing a bit of catching up. I'd taken a couple of videos at the weekend of a dunnock collecting nesting material in the garden and our frogs doing what they do in our pond. These two videos have now been edited and uploaded to YouTube and Facebook.
We've also been working on updating our websites into Adobe Muse which is quite a task. I think I've now got the main parts of my websites changed over to our new software although I'm sure I'll have to tweak a few things as I spot things that aren't working correctly.
If you fancy having a look at April's first page then click on this link to see all April's week one blog posts together. Our gardening pages detailing our sowing, planting and harvesting for this year have also been swapped over to Adobe Muse. You can try them out by following this link.
