Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
March 17, 2009: the green haze of spring days
As the mercury slowly climbs and the earth starts to warm up, Terry Walton's plot is re-awakening with a haze of tender green shoots and tiny buds
What a beautiful spring-like weekend we've just experienced among the welsh hillsides. What's noticeable on these bright days is that the hours are split evenly between the hours of daylight and darkness. This is a signal to all plant life that it's time to re-awaken and start preparing for the happy and fruitful days ahead.
Take a careful look around you at those fruit bushes on your plot and if you study carefully you will see the tender green shoots of new life starting to emerge as tiny buds slowly unfurl. The hedgerows are also starting to lose that bare look and mists of green haziness are appearing there as the Hawthorne is jolted from its winter slumbers.
All these signs are the start of the warmer, longer days and the sap is rising carrying food from the roots to feed the leaves above. These in turn will soon repay the favour as chlorophyll, carbon dioxide and sunlight provide the nourishment needed to make the plant flourish and bring forth bountiful harvests.
Lay the open palm of your hand on the bare soil. What do you feel? No longer should you experience that cold shudder up your arm and this is a clear indication the soil is warming up. To accelerate this warming process, cover the areas to be used for early sowing with cloches to provide a few more degrees of warmth for the soil. This extra warmth will spur the early-sown crops into action.
However some patience still needs to be harnessed before the headlong rush into a planting frenzy. Look around you and you will notice that the buds of those daffodils are only just bringing forth their golden trumpets. These flowering indicators are much later than previous years and are a sure sign that there has been a harsh winter. This year the season is properly aligned.
Life in the greenhouse however is a different matter and, with the gentle heat provided in there, many sowings can be made. This is a good time to sow the tomato seeds and get them ready to grace our salad bowls in the early summer months. Some beetroot can also be sown in small pots ready to go out under the cloches to provide the jewel-coloured globes that bring colour to our salads.
The advantage of this special climate under cover is that you can steal a head start on Nature with your favourite vegetables and get ahead of the game.
I fear reading my favourite gardening magazines these days. More and more often we seem to be under threat from strange new pests and diseases. Some while ago I wrote about the new pests that are appearing in our gardens, possibly due to climate change.
Now the latest scare is 'phytopthora fungus'. What's this I ask myself? Apparently this fungus has been found in our parks and open spaces and is devastating rhododendrons, magnolias and camellias. This disease could wipe out our magnificent spring flowering plants and destroy the beauty of our gardens.
Where do these new diseases appear from? There is no doubt in my mind that with travel around the world becoming easier these are carried to our shores and, as the climates changes on this island of ours, they establish themselves.
These new pests and diseases will not daunt us - we will overcome them, but vigilance is vital. It only serves to make this pastime of ours the more challenging but in the end the rewards are great.
More from Terry Walton
- Jan 6, 2009: fearsome creatures
- May 7, 2008: companion planting to fight predators
- Terry Walton's allotment sagas
More gardening
- Controlling slugs and snails
- How to tackle aphids
- Driving back the invader plants
- Visit our gardening channel
- Chat to other allotmenteers at Saga Zone
My Life On A Hillside 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. The book is available from Amazon.
