Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
Feb 20: Topsy-turvy weather keeps wildlife guessing
Well the sun keeps on shining and after the weeks of constant rain it is turning out to be weeks of dry weather, writes Terry Walton
Oh, but these cold nights! The weekend brought the coldest night of the winter so far and a temperature of minus five degrees Centigrade was recorded on the allotment.
The ground of early morning is like concrete and there is no point in rushing there at the moment. The early afternoon sun brings some gentle heat and the frost evaporates as swift as it forms.
There is no point in trying to work on frozen soil and walking on it destroys the structure and does untold damage. So it is change in my working pattern during this cold but welcome spell of weather.
The mornings are spent pottering in the greenhouse in the pleasant warmth but has the temperature rises rapidly, which it does in this strengthening sunshine, it is out in the fresh air and off to the allotment.
Everyone seems to have the same idea and there is much digging and banter taking place.
It is not only gardeners who are being confused by this topsy-turvy winter, the wildlife are kept guessing as to what season it is. Some weeks ago the first frogspawn appeared in the pond and the night time saw plenty of activity from the amorous frogs. The cold snap has curtailed their night time frolics and they have gone back to their winter hideaways to wait warm nights.
Still when the frost has gone the ground is dry enough to start preparing the various beds. The most important bed for me is the one where I will grow this year onion family. To produce a good crop of these very versatile vegetables means putting in time to produce a very fertile bed.
The surface of the ground gets a liberal coating of well rotted manure and this can be dug well in now and the ground left slightly ‘lumpy’ for the weather to break down into a fine tilth.
On the days that permit a little more activity part of this area can be forked over and the shallots can be planted. These are hardy little souls and will withstand all that these frosty nights throw at them. The onions can wait!
These will not go near the soil until at least the end of March and then I only plant the onions grown from sets. The large onions grown from seed will not see ‘mother earth’ until well into April and will remain growing big and strong in the pleasant environment of my greenhouse.
If I have done my work well then I will be eating my onions throughout the whole of next winter and into spring. So it pays to prepare the bed well.
The warmth of the sun during the late morning and early afternoon is having a great impact on the seeds sown in the greenhouse. By midday it is positively tropical feel in there and seeds are germinating very quickly and those that emerge are growing on at an unexpected rate. This means much more ‘pricking’ out to do and I am getting overwhelmed with full seed trays.
Then comes early evening and a rapid fall in temperature. I then cluster them all around the paraffin lamp to keep them cosy and frost free.
They are like my little children and I am sure, given a little time, they would all have names.
Such is the devotion of a gardener to those little ones in their care.
More from Terry Walton
More on allotments
- Cleve West on the joys of allotmenteering
- The window box allotment: how to grow vegetables when you don't have a garden
- How to start a vegetable garden
- The Allotment produces the goods
- How to get an allotment
* Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press at £12.99. The book is available from Amazon.
