Easter Sunday, 16 April 2017

April's Getting Colder

As it's April and spring it doesn't seem too much to expect the temperature to be increasing as we head through the month but unfortunately the opposite is happening.

 

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Temperature & Rainfall Records for April 2017

 

Based on average daily temperatures Saturday turned out to be the lowest of the month at just 8.4°C or 47.1°F. We had a bit of everything on Saturday, with sunshine and showers accompanied by a strong to gale force wind. It was a day for doing a bit of seed sowing in the greenhouse.

 

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In truth we didn't have much rain. The day's showers amounted to only 1.0mm (0.04in) bringing April's total up to 2.8mm or 0.11in giving us a dry month so far.

 

We're having another attempt to grow some melons this year. We have tried in the past without much success. This year we are trying a variety called Emir.

 

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There were 10 seeds in the packet and I decided to sow 5 of them leaving the others to be sown in a couple of weeks time.

 

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The seeds have placed under our indoor growlight to germinate. I'm not expecting any problems getting them to germinate but they might not be very happy when they are moved into the greenhouse to grow on. I'm planning on sowing the other 5 seeds in a couple of weeks time. The plan is to grow the plants in our cold frame on the plot but I may try some in our home and plot greenhouses and maybe even one in our cold frame at home. More options might give us a better chance of at least one ripe melon.

 

Easter Monday, 17 April 2017

What's This In My Tomato Seedlings?

The weather was fairly typical of a Bank Holiday. It was dull and cloudy for most of the day with a bit of drizzly rain on and off throughout the day. This turned into more persistent rain in the evening.

 

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Temperature & Rainfall for 16 April 2017

 

I'm always behind everyone else when it comes to sowing tomato seeds. I sowed some a week ago now on 10 April and they went into our indoor growlight to germinate. Some only took four days to germinate and they are growing away well.

 

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Tomato Seedlings Sungold & Gardener's Delight

 

Sungold were the first variety to pop their leaves through the compost followed a day later by Gardener's Delight. However, a variety called Golden Crown are taking a little bit longer to germinate but I've spotted an imposter amongst them.

 

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It didn't take any great observational skills to spot it. It germinated first and emerged from the soil with 2 leaves already showing rather than that little loop of stem that you see when tomatoes are just popping through the compost.

 

I think the imposter might be a Ipomoea "Morning Glory". Last month I was clearing out last year's "Morning Glory" plant as it dies off over winter in the greenhouse. It produces lots of seed and I save a few of these each year when the old plant is composted.

 

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Maybe one of the seeds accidentally fell into the bag of compost and finished up in with the tomato seeds. In any case I'll grow the seedling on to see what it turns into.

 

Wednesday, 19 April 2017

It's Still Getting Colder

It never got very warm at all on Easter Monday or Tuesday although in any brief spells of afternoon sunshine it didn't feel too bad. Overnight into Tuesday morning the temperature dropped to 0.9°C so we'll have had a little bit of ground frost around dawn. It also meant that Tuesday was the coldest day of the month based on average daily temperatures with 7.0°C or 44.6°F.

 

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Temperature & Solar Radiation Records for 18 April 2017

 

On the plot plum and pear blossom has been replaced by apple blossom.

 

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Our quince Meeches Prolific has joined in with the apples too.

 

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We hadn't visited the plot for about a week which is unusual for us at this time of the year. The grass paths had grown long since the last visit and were in need of strimming before they got completely out of control.

 

While I strimmed the paths and cultivated a couple more beds Sue planted more potatoes and onion sets.

 

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We're now planning where to sow parsnips and carrots. I think we have some beds dug over but they need covering with weed control fabric.

 

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Our beds have dried out a lot through April and it’s a while since we had any decent rainfall. It won’t be long now before they become too dry to cultivate without a drop of rain.

 

Friday, 21 April 2017

Confusing Club Root

The weather hasn’t been anything spectacular over the last few days. I suppose it’s been pretty average weather for mid to late April.

 

If you follow our blogs you’ll know that we suffer from club root on our allotment. A soil borne disease that affects brassica plants and a disease that there’s no treatment to prevent it available to gardeners. I tend to keep a record of the beds on the plot affected by club root and make sure I don’t plant brassicas in these beds. All our beds are on a 3 or 4 year crop rotation and therefore they aren’t planted up with brassicas year after year.

 

Last summer I ordered some plug plants from one of the seed companies. It was a collection of various types of brassica plants.  The intention was to provide crops from late winter through into the spring of this year. They were planted out on 06 September 2016 and were planted through weed control fabric and covered with environmesh to protect them from pigeon damage.

 

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Planted on 06 September 2016

 

They were in a bed that I hadn’t marked up as being affected by club root. However, after initially starting to grow well, winter weather and what I believed to be club root started to take a toll. By the end of winter the plants didn't look very well at all.

 

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Photo taken on 05 February 2017

 

They all had stunted growth, almost no root and could be pulled out of the ground with very little effort. I consider this to be typical of the problems caused by club root. The plants were pulled up and destroyed.

 

There were a few plants of cauliflower Aalsmeer that didn’t look completely dead and I decided to leave them in the ground and see if they would pick up and produce some cauliflowers.

 

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Photo taken on 05 February 2017

 

Well to my amazement they have or I should say one of them has so far and I think a couple more will very soon.

 

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Cauliflower Aalsmeer 15 April 2017

 

As I thought all the other brassicas in this bed had succumbed to club root I decided to dig out the root of this cauliflower and see if it had any signs of club root. It took a little bit of digging up a sign that it probably wasn’t affected.

 

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Cauliflower Aalsmeer  Root 15 April 2017

 

Looking at the root it's clear that the plant didn’t have club root and as the picture shows the root looks healthy enough with no bulbous parts which are the tell-tale signs of the disease.

 

So, I’m not sure now whether this bed is affected by club root or not. Most of the varieties we grow are club root resistant ones but the choice of varieties is limited and I like to try something different for a change.  Maybe Aalsmeer has some club root resistance or maybe only part of the bed is affected by the disease or even better it was the winter weather that affected the plants and not club root at all. I might try brassicas again in this bed before dismissing it entirely for brassicas. I'll certainly be checking the remaining cauliflower plants roots when digging them out in a few weeks time.

 

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