Saturday 01 February 2014
A Half Decent Start?
Saturday morning was bright and sunny but the breeze picked up around lunchtime and we had a very windy afternoon and the obligatory drop of rain too. But then I was a little surprised by the records from my weather station. It recorded 2.7 hours of sunshine. That might not appear too good but the reading is affected by the sensor being in the shadow of the house through the winter months. In any case that’s the highest sunshine reading since 04 October 2013. I didn’t think we’d had that much sunshine on Saturday.
Last week I took a picture of our iris Kathleen Hodgkin which was in full flower on 02 February 2013. This year she’s never really made into full flower taking a bit of a battering from the wind and rain.
This is how she looked on 02 February this year not really impressive in comparison with last year as you can see from last year’s photo here.
As the forecast for the beginning of February is for more of the same weather I thought I’d have a look back through my records to see when we last had a spell of a few dry and sunny days together rather than the odd half day of sunshine followed by more dull and damp weather that we seem to have had for months now. I think we’d have to go back to the last week in September 2013. A week of dry sunny weather really would be a welcome change.
Sunday 02 February 2014
Time To Get Going
Sunday was a nice sunny day and fairly mild reaching 8.7°C. We had a bit of rain in the early hours of the morning just to keep my rain gauge ticking over.
As it was such a nice afternoon I decided to plant some of our onion and shallot sets up into modules to grow on in the greenhouse. The sets had arrived with our other seeds from Kings whilst we were in the middle of decorating. Kept in the house the sets will start to grow in any case producing long leggy shoots so at least planted in modules they have a bit of soil to root into.
What I’d forgotten was that the greenhouse goes into a sort of hibernation once the summer crops are finished. We only pop in occasionally to water a few over wintering plants or collect some onions stored there for winter. In other words it needs a good tidy out.
Our grape vine was first for the tidy up. All last year’s dead leaves needed removing and the old stems cutting back to the main vine.
It always looks a bit drastic after an early spring prune but it’s worked in the past so I have no reason to suspect this year will be any different. It was a case of chopping and bagging all the prunings so that they can go onto the compost heap down on the plot.
The wildlife in the greenhouse weren’t too happy with my intrusion into their world. This spider was taken aback when I moved a few pots but soon scampered away and out of harms way.
Once I’d managed to clear away a few pots and make some space on the greenhouse floor I managed to get some onions and shallots planted.
There’s still lots more tidying up to do in the greenhouse. As it’s done I’ll get some more onion sets planted into modules. I’ve left the spare onion sets in the greenhouse hoping that the cooler conditions will delay any growth until I have I have time to sort them out. If any serious frosts are threatened they will be covered with a couple of layers of fleece.
A month by month list of this year’s plantings and sowings will be kept here.
Monday 03 February 2014
Aarg -
Monday was back to dull and cloudy and feeling coldish in what breeze there was but at least we didn’t have any rain throughout the day.
We paid a visit to Victoria Garden Centre. Having planted up our shallots on Sunday we decided some extra sets were required as a little top up. We also wanted to buy some Bordeaux Mixture to try to combat the Peach Leaf Curl which devastated the tree last spring and early summer.
We also added to our cut flower collection with a packet of mixed gladioli and Dahlias -
If you remember one of our early iris flowers on Kathleen Hodgkin never quite made it into full flower due to the wind and rain. It just goes to show how crucial flower timing is and plants can easily get it wrong.
This little cluster have timed it just about spot on giving us a super little early display.
Tuesday 04 February 2014
Lucky Again!
Tuesday was a pleasant February day with plenty of sunny periods through the day. The first of the storms arrived mid evening although we obviously missed the worst it had to offer. We didn’t have any particularly strong winds and a total of 4.8mm of rain shared between late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
The forecast is for more wet and windy weather for the rest of the week and through the weekend so we’ll have to see if our luck holds out.
Wednesday 05 February 2014
New for Old?
As the forecaster’s predicted Wednesday was dull, wet and windy with the wind and rain lasting into the early hours of Thursday morning.
Wednesday’s rain amounted to 9.4mm and the wind was stronger than Tuesday.
In our front garden Katherine Hodgkin is now in full display despite the weather whilst in our neighbours garden last year geraniums are still in flower. That’s certainly value for money from last year’s summer bedding plants.
Our forecast is for more rain in the late afternoon lasting through to mid morning on Friday. It’s just as well we’re busy decorating again this week. It’s not a week for gardening by any stretch of the imagination.
Thursday and Friday 06/07 February 2014
Missed It Again?
We’re doing remarkably well so far at missing the storms coming in off the Atlantic. Thursday was wet and windy. Friday was the better day with some sunny periods and squally showers.
It’s hard to keep track of the weather forecasts so I’m not sure whether we missed the last storm or it hasn’t arrived yet.
I took my camera out with me on Saturday morning as I replenished the bird table food. Our one legged blackbird who we’ve nicknamed “Hoppy” is usually around waiting for me and I thought I might be able to get a photo of him close to the bird table. Unfortunately there was a bit of a fight between our regular male and female blackbirds with the result that none of them remained settled in one position long enough to compose a decent photo. This was the best I managed of Hoppy. He was just too close and I missed his tail.
