Saturday an Sunday 08/09 March 2014
Well Worth the Wait
It was a weekend of two halves. Saturday was dull and cloudy and best glossed over because Sunday was absolutely brilliant with sunshine all day. It was easily our warmest day of the year with the temperature reaching a very pleasant 18.6°C.
We’d planned a visit to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway the preserved railway line in Bronte country and where the 1970 film The Railway Children was made.
One of the stations along the line is Haworth, home to the famous Bronte sisters. We walked from the station through the park to the main street on our way to the Bronte museum.
We found a little cafe for some lunch before finding the Bronte Parsonage Museum.
We didn’t have time to look around the museum but after taking few photos we head back to the railway station and to catch a train to explore more of the railway.
Monday 10 March 2014
Very Late Early Nantes
Monday was another glorious sunny spring day and although the temperature didn’t make it to the dizzy heights of Sunday’s 18.6°C managing only 11.9°C it felt very pleasant in the sunshine. We have paid the price for the clear skies overnight into Tuesday with a frost as the temperature fell to -
On the plot we harvested some carrots and leeks. The carrots are the last few of our Early Nantes sown in April last year and left in the ground through winter. To be honest there is a rather large amount of waste on the carrots now where they’ve been attacked by slugs and other nasties over winter. The carrots though still taste fine. The leeks are Blue Solaise and these remain in good condition but I suspect they will start to grow again in the next few weeks and need to be used up before then.
The patio area on the plot that I started to tidy up last week was finished and is now ready for spring and summer. The last section of weed control fabric was laid under the paving flags and around the roots of our tayberry. Cutting the paving flags didn’t go quite according to plan but it’s made a satisfactory job for the allotment.
I noticed that some plot holders look to have already planted their early potatoes. I thought that the ground was still too wet to cultivate where the leeks were dug out so I’m not considering planting any potatoes outside for a few weeks yet. The soil needs time to dry out and warm up. It’s still early March with time for some cold days and nights so my potatoes will continue chitting in the greenhouse where they can be protected if any very cold weather is forecast.
Tuesday 11 March 2014
Now It Gets Frosty
After the glorious day on Monday Tuesday morning was a real let down. We’ve now had more frosts in March than February and Tuesday morning’s low of -
Tuesday morning remained cloudy and cold but the sun did manage to break through early in the afternoon making it feel much warmer outside even if it didn’t do much to lift the temperature.
One of the tasks to get done over the next few weeks is the home greenhouse refurbishment. I’m still waiting for the replacement polycarbonate to be delivered. It was ordered on 20 February and still hasn’t arrived. I’ve been told that it should arrive by Thursday but then again it should have arrived by last Friday and didn’t. Not only is the greenhouse in need of some external refurbishment it needs sorting out inside to remove all last years pots of dead plants and all our over wintering plants need a good tidy up.
Once this part of the greenhouse was cleared of last year’s plant life I was able to get all our onions and shallots together and check that I actually had two modules of each variety planted up. They’d been scattered all over the greenhouse but now things are looking a little more organised. There is now some space at the other side of the greenhouse but there’s a lot of tiding up to do here too.
This is the side of the greenhouse I will need access to when our new polycarbonate sheets eventually arrive so I’ll be leaving this side until that job is completed. In the pots I emptied that had been in the greenhouse over winter, I didn’t find too much left that was worth keeping. My best find was some of last year’s dahlia tubers which looked to be in good condition having come through the winter unscathed.
Like our new dahlias I’ve put these old tubers in a tray of damp compost to encourage them into growth.
Wednesday 12 March 2014
Getting Started
Wednesday’s weather didn’t vary much from yesterday except that the sun came out a little earlier, it was a fraction milder and we escaped an overnight frost.
In the afternoon the grass got its first cut of the season. It was a bit on the wet side but it was long and was unlikely to get any drier by putting it off any longer. After trimming around the lawn edges I decided to do a bit of repair work to the greenhouse. For some reason last year the guttering fell off both sides of the greenhouse meaning the water butt didn’t fill up and I had a bit of a traipse carrying water to the greenhouse. I’ve had one or two traipses already this year and it’s convinced me that the guttering needs to be fixed to make watering so much more convenient.
I’m not too sure why the guttering fell off but it’s as if either the greenhouse has got longer or the guttering has shrunk. The result is that each piece of gutter no longer quite stretches between the fixing brackets and drops to the floor. Starting at the end in the forefront of the picture I’ve repositioned the brackets to allow for this. All was going well until I got to the last bracket and found it broken.
I don’t know how this has happened but I think the guttering is a fairly standard design and I should be able to buy the necessary bits and pieces from the local DIY shop.
I’ve just got to replace some of the glass, fix the guttering to the other side and help Sue re-
Thursday 13 March 2014
More Maintenance on a Glorious Spring Day
We did well on Thursday avoiding any early morning mist and fog and were treated to sunshine all day long. The afternoon temperature made it up to a lovely mild 18.2°C.
As it was such a lovely afternoon we decided to start “red cedaring” our home greenhouse as part of its refurbishment plan. As it turned out we did well getting virtually all the outside of the greenhouse treated although it was rather touch and go as to whether or not some sort of floodlighting might be required to get the job done.
All the potted fruit trees that live around the outside of the greenhouse were moved to an area of safety so that they wouldn’t accidentally get covered in red cedar staining. It was then pretty straight forward forward to stain the sides and some of the roof which could be reached using some steps. The greenhouse ridge and higher parts of the roof were a bit more tricky to reach. One option was to remove each pane of glass and use a step ladder from inside the greenhouse to reach those high up sections of roof. At one stage my plan was to use this method but taking out that many panes of glass would be a real pain so I decided to try Martyn’s extended paint brush technique first before going to all that trouble.
With my paint brush securely screwed to piece of timber this method worked better than I expected. It occasionally got a bit messy transferring stain from pot to greenhouse and it was tricky controlling a paint brush with such a long handle but it was much better than removing all the glass.
These pictures are how the greenhouse looks on Friday morning in daylight. One window still needs staining with my extended brush. In the warm weather yesterday afternoon the window’s automated opener was in action and it was impossible to get a brush on the window frame. There’s also some staining to complete on the far side of the greenhouse once the window repairs are completed. Will our polycarbonate ever come from shedwindows.co.uk? I just don’t know. The order was made and money taken from our credit account on 20 February. Their help line is absolutely useless. Excuses so far in chronological order.
- It will be delivered by Friday (7th March)
- You should have received it my now it must have got lost in transit. New delivery date Thursday 13th March
- It’s out for delivery (up to 17:30) for Thursday 13th
- It’s not on the delivery for Thursday we’ll try for Friday.
- We now know it’s not going to be delivered Friday and await their latest excuse. They say they will call back but I’ve heard this three times before and they haven’t.
My advise would be if you want to purchase any glass or polycarbonate online don’t use this company.
Friday 14 March 2014
Is That It?
Friday morning was nice and sunny and we were planning on some more work in the garden. Then over lunchtime the weather conditions changed rapidly as the sunshine was replaced by cloud and a gale force wind came from nowhere.
As you can see the yellow line representing sunshine took a sudden dip at lunchtime along with the temperature. The strong to gale force wind lasted well into the evening dying down in the early hours of Saturday morning.
So far this month the weather forecaster’s would tell us it’s been a mild month which is true but in the greenhouse it gets cold during the night. This is why I resist the temptation to sow any tender seeds such as tomatoes which aren’t going to appreciate any cold nights. In our partly refurbished home greenhouse it’s been warm during the day and very pleasant for pottering about with temperatures into the mid twenties centigrade very tempting conditions to get seed sowing.
The temperature in the greenhouse, shown by the top yellow line, soars during the daytime especially on any sunny days but each evening the temperature drops as shown by the light blue line, to almost the same as the outside temperature with nearly every night this month below 5°C and some nights down to freezing. So if your more tender plants aren’t doing too well even in a cold greenhouse this might be one of the reasons.