Saturday, 01 April 2017

Flying Scotsman Reopens The Settle to Carlisle Railway

Gardening was put to one side for the day as, on a very mild last day of March, we headed for the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria to see if we could manage some video of the world famous steam locomotive 60103 Flying Scotsman re-opening the equally famous Settle to Carlisle Railway line.

 

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60103 Flying Scotsman Crosses Dent Head Viaduct With The Settle & Carlisle Reopening Special

 

In the morning, just before lunchtime, we caught the train crossing Dent Head Viaduct as it headed on its journey to Carlisle. After lunch we visited Brough Castle in Cumbria. this was one of a series of castles or forts spread along the Roman road from York to Carlisle. The fort was probably constructed around AD78. It was reoccupied by the Normans in the 11th century.

 

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The castle is now looked after by English Heritage

 

We then headed back to Aisgill, which is the highest point on the Settle to Carlisle railway, to catch the returning Flying Scotsman.

 

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We weren't the only ones with this idea.

 

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60103 Flying Scotsman With The Return Leg of The Settle & Carlisle Reopening Special at Aisgill

 

Of course no trip into the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria in spring would be complete without a stop to capture shots of some spring lambs.

 

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Monday, 03 April 2017

A Very Mild March

As we move into April our gardening season gets into full swing. March is normally a coolish month and for this reason I don't start sowing many seeds until the beginning of April. However, March turned out to be very mild, well for March, as the average temperature for the month was 8.8°C or 47.8°F.

 

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As you can see from the graphic above March for us was not only the mildest I've recorded, but also the mildest in the  last 25 years, replacing 2012 from top spot by 0.1°C or about 0.15°F. Rainfall and sunshine amounts were about average for March so it wasn't too bad a month and it certainly gave us the opportunity to gets some beds ready for sowing and planting at the allotment.

 

The first batch of seeds have been sown and have been left to germinate in the greenhouse.

 

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Now all I need to do is keep the slugs, snails and mice at bay to give the seeds a chance to germinate. A list of all our sowing and planting in April will be kept here.

 

Tuesday, 04 April 2017

First Earlies and Tester Potatoes Planted

Monday was a lovely sunny spring day. It wasn't quite the warmest day of the year but with only a light breeze it felt like it should have been. We decided to take advantage of the fine weather and get our first early potatoes planted.

 

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Planting First Early Potatoes - Casablanca

 

If you follow our blog you'll know we don't plant our potatoes in the traditional way of digging out a trench which then has compost or manure added before the potatoes are placed in the trench which is then backfilled. We prefer the trowel only method.

 

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Planting First Early Potatoes - Casablanca

 

We find our method is much easier and quicker and gives us good results so we'll be sticking to it. We also had time to plant six varieties of potatoes that we haven't grown before. We've four tubers of each variety to try.

 

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Planting Potatoes:- Cara, Innovator, Isle of Jura, Osprey, Rooster, & Saxon

 

We planted these potatoes in a similar manner except that they were planted through holes in weed control fabric. I'm anticipating that these potatoes will all be lifted at the same time. When the potato tops have died back the weed control fabric will be removed to make lifting the potatoes easier. I will start lifting our first earlies before the foliage starts to die back and it's much easier to do this without any weed control fabric getting in the way.

 

Friday, 07 April 2017

A Plot Tour

We’ve been a bit busy this week and not had any time for gardening at home or at the allotment since Monday. On Monday I thought it might be a good idea to do a quick video tour of the allotment before we get too much sown and planted.

 

There’s lots of fruit blossom and we’ll have to hope that some fine weather brings the pollinating insects out if force to set some fruit.

Disclaimer

This weather site is operated as an amateur weather station site and should not be used as official data. I make every effort to ensure my data is as accurate as possible but I cannot guarantee that the data meets the requirements of the Meteorological Office or other professional weather monitoring organisations.

©M Garrett 2016