Sunday to Tuesday 06-08 March 2016
Indoor Jobs
We’ve been busy inside over the last few days. We decided on a new carpet for the lounge, dining room and study. Once the carpet had arrived and was ready to be fitted we had the job of moving as much downstairs furniture as we could so the carpet fitter could move in. At first everything was very ordered but by the time we’d finished moving stuff the whole of the house was in chaos. Computers unplugged and turned off. How would we remember where all those different cables plugged in?
This was my infallible method take some photos and everything would be fine. Turned out it wasn’t that infallible. The carpets are now fitted and the house is gradually returning to normal as stuff’s moved back to where it belongs.
Outside the weather’s not been too bad, in fact Monday was a lovely sunny day even if it was a little on the cold side. It was lovely to see some sunshine. Our palm tree looked quite tropical in the bright sunshine.
Now if only it would stay dry we might be able to get on with some gardening.
Wednesday 09 March 2016
Too Cold and Wet for Digging
Wednesday was another very wet day with rain from first thing all the way through to teatime. Another 14.0mm of rain added to the first eight days of the month bring the total for March 2016 up to 55.2mm. That’s the wettest March in the last seven years. The previous highest March total I’ve recorded was 53.8mm in 2015.
Apart from the first day of the month it’s been on the cold side too with a couple of overnight frosts thrown in for good measure.
Photography has been confined to indoors.
Thursday 10 March 2016
Doing It As the Experts Suggest
At least it didn’t rain on Thursday although it was dull and cold for most of the day. The clouds did lift a little bit very late in the afternoon to reveal some small patches of blue sky.
Last autumn we watched the expert TV gardeners’ planting up large display pots with plants that will look good through winter planted in the top with layers of bulbs underneath to give spring colour over several weeks. We decided to gibe this a go.
Our display has been standing on the patio all winter and it’s looked pretty good but now we have a problem.
The spring bulbs under one of the heathers have started to grow and have pushed the heather completely out of the soil. I don’t remember the TV gardeners saying that this would happen. I’m planning on trying to replant the heather carefully, and hopefully avoiding any damage to the heather or bulbs that have uprooted it.
Friday & Saturday 11/12 March 2016
A Day Out and a Bit of Pruning
We had a day out in Lancashire on Friday visiting the East Lancashire Railway’s spring steam gala. It was misty and murky travelling over the Pennines but the mist disappeared and the sun came out making it feel like spring had actually arrived.
Saturday morning wasn’t too bad either and we decided on an afternoon at the allotment. I’ve been planning for some time now to cut down a conifer tree that has been growing on the plot for almost as long as we’ve had an allotment.
You can just see it to the right of this photo taken a couple of years ago. There’s nothing wrong with the tree except that it shades three beds and it’s starting to affect how our crops grow in these beds. Sad as it is I decided it was time to fell it. It didn’t take me as long as I expected. It had produced three main trunks from the base rather than one really thick one.
All I’ve got to do now is tidy up the mess. I think that’s going to take me much longer than it did to cut down the tree. I’ll have to remove the side branches from the main trunks before I even consider trying to move the tree trunks due to the weight of them.
I was pleased that I managed to get the trunks to fall in the right directions and avoid demolishing either our shed or our kiwi fedge.
I did have time to dig up a few parsnips as well and the ground was very wet. Trying to dig it in its current state will do more harm than good so it will be left for a couple of weeks until it dries out a bit. We’ve plenty of other tidying up jobs to be getting on with!
Sunday 13 March 2016
Heavy Lifting Day
Sunday was a rather nice March day. Whilst it wasn’t particularly warm, with little or no breeze and some sunshine it felt very pleasant.
Sunday’s jobs were to get some onion sets and shallots into modules to get them off to a good start. Once these are growing well they will be transplanted into the plot. There is no way we could prepare some ground for them on the allotment. It just far too wet and soggy. So they have the luxury of a few weeks in the greenhouse and coldframe before moving down to the plot.
In spring 2014, we added a couple of coldframes and a raised bed in an unused area behind our home greenhouse. This area had become a dumping ground and we thought we could make much better use of it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get either the raised bed nor coldframes in the positions we really wanted them in. It was all a bit rushed so that we could make use of them.
Now was a good time to do some moving.
I started by emptying out lots of the soil into plastic bags. Once I’d removed a bit more than half the soil I optimistically decided to see if the raised bed would move. It wouldn’t so I decided the only option was to empty out all the remaining soil. Once this was done it was possible to gradually move the bed into our preferred position by using a pick axe under one edge. After lots of pushing and shoving we eventually moved it into its new location.
The bed was filled back up with soil and is now ready for its first sowings of the year.
All that remains now is for our two coldframes to be repositioned before we need to start hardening off our plants.
Monday 14 March 2016
Some Weather Stuff for a Change
Monday turned out to be another lovely March day with dawn to dusk sunshine. The forecast is for the weather to continue much the same all the way through to the beginning of next week, but with varying amounts of cloud.
Although it’s been sunny and felt very spring like in the sunshine, the actual temperature hasn’t been all that high. The warmest day of the month so far was Saturday 12 March when it reached 13.3°C (55.9°F). Strangely the record for the mildest day of the year so far, is held by 24 January 2016 with 14.7°C (58.5°F).
March so far has been fairly cool as recent previous March records show with only 2013 having a lower average temperature. Hopefully a decent end to the month will see the average temperature rise up a little towards the monthly average.
It’s also worth noting that the averages temperatures for December and January were higher than that for March to date and there’s very little difference between February and March. Seems like a mild winter followed by a cold start to spring.
