Weather!

[Stonehead]

Last year, we sowed outside and planted out four to six weeks after the south of the UK and still lost quite a few plants to frosts in early May.

This year, we started sowing even later (only starting two weeks ago for many crops) and only began hardening off plants last week.

So what happens last night? We get heavy rain in the early evening (and welcome it was too) and then a very hard frost this morning. It was cold enough to see a quarter inch of ice form on all the puddles left by the rain.

The potatoes, which were just coming through, have been frost nipped, while our first sowings of parsnips, carrots, beets, lettuce, calabrese etc have all been stopped in their tracks. They'd just started to come through and wham, frozen.

The peas are okay under their bottle cloches (although the pigeons have worked out how to knock the bottles over!) and the plants in the cold frames are also okay. Most of the remaining cabbages from last year are okay because we grow harder varieties, but even so a few have suffered badly.

So, guess what I'll be doing over the next few days? That's right, clearing the worst affected beds and resowing.

You wouldn't believe it's the last week of spring!

Stonehead

[ina]

The great British subject of "weather"...

I was wearing two of my warmest wooly jumpers yesterday morning outside. I don't think we had serious frost here, but it certainly doesn't feel like spring. It somehow doesn't go with the long, light evenings!

Don't worry, Dennis, you are not the only one who's out there sowing! My peas are going in today or tomorrow. And I'll be potting up my courgettes/marrows/pumpkins etc rather than planting them out yet. Just as well we have a lot of spare pots...

Do you use fleece at all? I've got enough now to cover most of the veggie plot (which is in my case quite small). Problem is, remembering to put it on when it threatens to get cold; and then to take it off again for slug control!

More rain expected for this afternoon, and it's staying cold. Grrr.

[Stonehead]

Do you use fleece at all? I've got enough now to cover most of the veggie plot (which is in my case quite small). Problem is, remembering to put it on when it threatens to get cold; and then to take it off again for slug control!

Fleece costs money! We have a couple of small tunnel cloches with fleece covering, but they're worn out and need to be re-sewn. Otherwise, we use glass jars, cut down milk bottles, pieces of plastic sheeting laid on bricks and four cold frames.

We also expect losses - even though it's frustrating to lose stuff all the time and deliberately overplant. If we do get surpluses, we can swap or sell them.

Must go now as it's school bus time and then back out to work.

Stonehead

[Shirley]

We had the most incredible hail storm here early evening - with a corrugated metal roof you can imagine the noise!!! Youngest thought it was brilliant and wanted to go out in it to collect some hailstones - ok thought I... and sure enough he changed his mind fairly quickly.

TBH we are way behind on planting having had various setbacks of our own to cope with - Hopefully things will catch up and I'll find time to get some planting at the same time as studying and tidying. Should be out there now instead of typing on here shouldn't I.... but we do need to get the bloody fence finished before I can happily allow my youngest to roam around the garden.... AARGH!!! The road outside, even though it's a rural one, is fairly busy and the cars, trucks and tractors HURTLE along.... even though we are on a bend. Stupid people - there is no way they would be able to stop if they needed to and there is nowhere for them to go apart from onto our paved parking area at the front of the house... perhaps it's time for some signs, and a wee fence around the paving.

[Hillbilly]

cant blinking delete this!

[Hillbilly]

We had the most incredible hail storm here early evening -

Yep we were in Alford and I watched that come down from your end of the woods! Couldn't believe it!

Frost here last night but, touch wood, havent lost too much. 6am coffee outside came as quite a shock though. Right, best get back to it.

[ina]

"Official" temperatures for last night at our site:
Air 0 C, ground -5.6C

I hadn't thought it was that cold!

Fleece does cost money, I know - I got some for my birthday, and bought another 10m myself. If I treat it nicely, it should last for years. I paid 65p/m (I think) - but you might get it cheaper if you buy bulk. In the long run I think it will be worth it, if you consider savings in extra seeds, and the time for re-sowing.

I think I won't sow my peas out yet, either - I'll sow them in modules and give them a bit more time to grow strong and cold-resistant! My friend (who's lived here for the last 20-odd years) reckons her father-in-law sowed most of his stuff in June, and still got a reasonable harvest. I think we'll just have to get used to this. Some years might be ok for sowing earlier, but a lot of them aren't.

[albert onglebod]

In my old gardening book written before such new fangled things as fleece were available, it says Straw can be used to cover potatoes and held down with netting if you have it.
Sheets can be used to cover tomato plants by draping over the stakes.
Pea sticks pushed into the ground on the exposed side of plants will act as a windbreak and can be arranged in a sort of tent fashion over celery for same purpose.
Old newspaper or any other kind of paper can be arranged tent like over susceptible plants and held in place with sticks if it looks frosty(I did this with my strawbs and it does work).

[Shirley]

ahhh yes... I did that with newspaper when we last lived up here... had forgotten all about it. Nice one Albert!!

Brrr Ina... brrr brrrr!!!

Poundland has some fleece that is a quid... can't remember the size of it but think it was about 2m x 3m - will ask my dd to check for me.

[albert onglebod]

Our poundland had it 1M X 6M.
Wilkinsons have 1.5M X 8M for about £3.99 and it seems a bit stronger than the poundland stuff. I got the wilko stuff(one packet) and then saw the poundland stuff on the same day and bought 4 packs.The Poundland stuff only just covers my 4ft wide bed with about 8" high hoops but the wilko stuff does it easily with a bit to spare at the edges.
I didnt mind cutting poundlands fleece to go over the little beds though at that price.

[Stonehead]

Have to be quick but for fleece, consider that we have 15 2m x 4m beds, eight other beds, 400sq m of potatoes and are putting in more beds. Even doing 25% of that is expensive!

Straw does work well with more robust plants that can push through, or with plants that are already established. It's how we overwinter carrots, parsnips, cabbage, neeps, etc. It tends to crush smaller stuff and the slugs love it!

I have an idea for using some old blue water pipe around the place. Fastening hoops of it to the sides of the beds (or a wooden frame) and then stretching heavy duty plastic over the top to create 2m x 4m mini polytunnels. However, they would have to be removeable and robust enough to withstand our winds, plus I need to find the plastic for little or no cost.

Bottles do work well, but as we don't buy much stuff we're always short of bottles. The OH's parents do contribute their pickle, jam and honey bottles but these usually end up filled with our own pickles, jams and preserves.

Granite edging to the beds would also work well as it would soak up the sun's heat by day and release it at night, but I'm keeping the stone for building jobs.

Anyway, back to work.

Stonehead

PS Three very bad hailstorms so far today. It's knocked a lot of blossom off the plum and apple trees.

[ina]

Oh dear, now that... We've not had hailstorms yet. But I've just been thinking this afternoon - went out to try and prepare a seedbed (yet again - I live in hope!), and found more leatherjackets than slugs.

What else? We've had long and late frosts; drought (almost); a slug invasion; more leatherjackets than in decades. We've not been flooded yet, and so far only a couple of light hailstorms - nothing to worry about. It is rather windy today, and I spent the morning trying to fix the polytunnel (not a good idea in windy weather), so that at least the plants in there don't get nipped by the frost!

It's a challenge, to say the least.