Kitchen Garden Forum

Make Hay when the sun shines....that's how I work...

That's just about what we have done this morning, OH! We cut our long rosa rugosa hedge, strimmed all the vegetation below it, carefully avoiding the snowdrops and the emerging scillas. Now our mini skip is almost full to the brim and well padded down. Just a bit more strimming to do and a short piece of fence to be replaced and that's the early spring clean done. The sun shone and there was not a breath of wind .....

10c,sunshine,change clothes ,went out the door,chucking it down. So I won't being going to the allotment this afternoon .Rain looks set for rest of the day-and snow forecast Saturday night.

Well done Monika, now that is good progress....
Just started raining heavily here, now and next week looks bitterly cold...seems we have far but done with Winter yet.

Yep, chucking it down again here, we did have some late afternoon sun, and I got a bit of painting done under the patio canopy. The lawn is a quagmire, I've ever known it to be so soggy.

OK down here for most of the morning but about 1pm it lashed down. I saw the dark cloud moving over but did not expect it to be so angry & stop moving when it hit the plot. Inside the tunnel with both dogs soaking wet & doing the obligatory shake it was loud, (that's both the rain being so heavy & me begging for the dogs to not go out again or to rub themselves dry on my jeans). I was well cold by the time Mr Westi got down to pick me up as the council is doing major roadworks & our normal 5 min drive is currently nearing 30 mins with the traffic buildup with 3 lanes into 1 & the diversions through residential areas.

Productivity was pretty low before though as I ordered the wrong brackets for the shelving I planned to put up in the shed so just a bit of harvesting & banging in the stakes under the netting, planted a few bulbs in the flower patch & drank coffee. Kinda perfect & relaxing really.

Not bad here today but the allotment is a bog, we have had to close our grass surfaced car park due to it being so churned up and muddy. But it was dry and mild till about 2pm, so I managed to change one of the polycarb twinwall sheets in the greenhouse as the old one had degraded after about 7/8 years of direct sun, weather, mould etc. Made some kindling for the shed woodburner, ate my soup by the stove heated from the wood I had chopped up, whilst staying warm and listening to the radio. Next job is to set the greenhouse up for seed sowing. My long term plan is to get more overwintering veg, I fail at sprouts, struggle with swede and get the timing wrong for savoy cabbage and kale. Always room for improvement I say and like OH 'make hay whilst the sun shines'

Oh dear, just back from my allotment.
Just as well all I went to do was to attack the boundary hedge at the top of my second plot.
The utility space aka grass, between me concrete enclosed compost, shed, nature, fruit tree patch had an inch of water over about a third of it, the raspberry plot across the path on my first plot had a pool in the corner, it's defined by sleepers inset level with the path at that point.

Got the trimming done, then let more water into the site by unblocking the fence with the footpath outside.
Also scraped up all the mud caused by leaves dropped by the primary school trees on the other side of the footpath and returned the mud over the security fence. It's their nature area twenty foot deep and six foot lower than their field.
Probably the reason my plot is so wet although four plots away from the path low point, the school is st the top of the slope with its hard surface areas, then the field, nature boundary (probably old field hedge predating development) footpath, our site then the ditch / stream before the shallow valley rises across the park to Housing. Technically it's a stream as the EA maintain it.

The wind has a real bite to it this morning...even had to roll my sleeves down!!

oldherbaceous wrote:The wind has a real bite to it this morning...even had to roll my sleeves down!!

It can't be that bad....we have warmed it up before sending it your way....

C.

My washing fluttered beautifully in the wind, dried a bit and then froze solid ......

Very cold wind all day ooh and rain ,I was talking to an old girlfriend who moved to Canada around 50 years ago she tells me they have -30 forecast this week that will see the whitefly off

You may remember last year that the mice on my plot, got into the greenhouse and eat every single seed that is food, once it has sprouted, ie beans, curcubit family, peas, sweet peas etc and I have tried various systems to foil them over the years. So last year made this large seed cage and it seemed to work. So here it is back in use, and the first sowing of some early broadbeans placed inside (note the use of recycled containers, tin cans. plastic containers etc) . All in all a worthwhile day sheltering in the newly repaired polycarb (twinwall) greenhouse.

annoying that you have to do this Compo, but excellent idea all the same

What a lot of work and effort to keep out the little beasties! I do hope it works, Compo.