Friday, 04 January 2019
Not Much Happening
There’s not a lot to say about our weather at the moment, nor have we been doing a great deal at the plot, so there's nothing much to blog about. Since the new year we haven’t been lucky enough to see any sunshine and apart from the first few hours of the new year it’s been on the chilly side, although as yet the temperature hasn’t fallen below freezing.
I need to set up my new website pages for 2019 which will take me a week or two to complete so links already set up might not work as expected until I get all the new links for this year sorted out.
Despite the cold and dull weather we’ve, had a couple of visits to the allotment. One of the jobs we’ve been planning on doing for a couple of winters now was sorting out our old cold frame which had been wrapped in environmesh to stop the wind from breaking the glass. Brambles had taken control with stems attaching themselves to the environmesh.
It took a while to untangle the brambles and remove the glass which is now stored safely in the greenhouse.
Once the cold frame was moved out of the way, to another part of the plot, the ground it had been covering for a few years was dug over. The ground was thick with bindweed roots, and as many of these as we could find were removed as the soil was dug over. There’s now a large heap of bindweed roots drying out ready for burning.
Moving the cold frame was one of those jobs where if they don't get done through winter, then they won’t be done at all, as we’re too busy sowing, planting or harvesting at other times of the year.
It’s not the only winter job we have planned but at this time of year the weather can put all our plans on hold.
I was surprised when I looked back at the temperatures for 2018 that with that long hot dry summer it wasn't the warmest year I've recorded over the last nine years. Amazingly, it didn't even make second or third place either.
If you haven't already guessed despite that long dry summer, our rainfall for the whole year was slightly below average but no way near the driest year of the last nine.