September

It is September 6th. The weather has changed dramatically to a mobile westerly airflow across the Atlantic, bringing cool weather and rain and gales.3 beds in the garden have been sown with Mustard 'Achilles' green manure, which will be ready to dig in, in 6 weeks time.
We still have cabbage, maize, beans, pumpkins, carrots, butternut squash,herbs, potatoes,Swiss chard, figs, growing in the garden, but with this weather, for how much longer.
I still cannot grow cauliflower successfully, it just bolts and flowers, so after years of trying, I GIVE UP! and I will never TRY to grow it again and stick to what works in the garden. Garden visitors are diminishing now that Autumn is here, still plenty of wildlife though.

August

It is 14th August and the garden is good. There are still NO cabbage white catterpillers and I have only seen a few Cab White Butterflies. WE have been selling potatoes, peas, beans, cabbages, onions, leeks, swiss chard, herbs. The weather is warm and humid, more rain, but still not enough.
Reservoirs are only 50% full, so if we have a dry Autumn and Winter, we are in TROUBLE. But the situation is not as bad as parts of France, and Scotland is having TOO MUCH rain, with their lakes full to OVERFLOWING!
It will soon be time time to browse seed catalogues, to decide what to grow next year.

July

It is now 3rd July and the garden is looking good, with the plants growing well, now we are getting more rainfall. The first row of potatoes have sold well, as has lavender, pineapple sage, tomato and fuchsia plants. The Soil Association have done their inspection and we passed, which is excellent.
We are having a proper summer now, with some sun and showers, plus the temperature is just right, 16 to 25 centigrade. I have seen very few cabbage white butterflies YET, hardly any slug damage, BUT, plenty of bean aphids.

RAIN

ON Sunday 12 June, It RAINED all day and night, cool, windy, wet. Just what my garden needed!, after no real rainfall for over 3 months. Just 24 hours later, you could see a difference in the health of the plants, with the beans positively SHOOTING UPWARDS. The next week is going to be mild and unsettled, more GOOD NEWS for me and FARMERS and GROWERS

1st April 2011

Now the soil is warmer, we have sown and planted, potatoes, broad beans, climbing french beans, dwarf french beans, peas, oriental greens, swiss chard, garlic, leeks, cabbage, sprouts, kale, cauliflower, parsnips,various flowers. So we have been busy, what with continuous weeding as well!
In a months time, the garden will look completely different, and the weather is helping with mild conditions and SOME rain.

new year new start

After the most severe winter for 40 years, most of the plants in the garden have survived, even some lettuce which was frozen stiff and buried under snow, survived!  But when the weather improved, it started to die?
Temperatures in December 2010 plummeted to as low as -15c, with very severe frosts and weeks of lying snow, I thought it would never end!
Now it is 3rd February 2011 and the temp is 12 centigrade, positively Tropical. Seeds have been sown in modules in the heated greenhouse and spring is not to far away, but, winter has time to return.