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Unfamiliar climate
May. 28th, 2018 03:28 pmWhen I was very young we used to have stable weather systems for around 10-14 days, so if it was sunny and warm when you broke up for the summer hols it would probably remain so for the first 2 weeks (great!) Much more recently, we started getting all the seasons in one day, no predictability at all, and the only really good thing was that I no longer got hay fever because plants were no longer coordinating their release of pollen. For the last year or two, I have been reading articles, e.g. in my favourite comic, New Scientist, about how the Gulf Stream - which keeps Northern Europe and especially Britain warm - seems to be changing its behaviour and is currently weaker than for about 1600 years. And now we have this wonderful continuing period of warm sunny weather.
We were in Newfoundland last July, which was enjoying blissful sunny weather like this after a long cold wet winter/spring which had kept the icebergs in or just outside their main port until about now (there was still one berg visible at sea when we arrived). Newfoundland is at a similar latitude to the UK and its weather is probably what ours would be like if the Gulf Stream wasn't there. Long wet winter and short hot summer, anyone?
I tried to get my summer garden planting going in April soon after Easter and had multiple failures, even with seeds in pots on window ledges indoors. It was clearly too cold, even for sturdy Yorkshire veg, then suddenly everything started to zoom into growth when the sun came out. I have had great success with growing winter-crop plants like cabbage, chard, beetroot, turnips for their green top growth which is tasty in salads with fresh herbs. What I do is take enough seedlings to grow on for full-size vegetables and leave the rest for garden salad. I have also planted lots and lots of our favourite potatoes (the old-fashioned variety, Pink Fir Apple) as well as digging out all the potato plants that have appeared randomly all over the place and putting them into potato bags to grow on for an earlier crop.
For the first time in many years I bought in some bedding plants (nearly 300 flowers for about £25) and I have only just got them all out into the places where they will grow permanently. Mick has written elsewhere about Yorkshire Sedum close-planting our steepest slopes with sedum, which in only a few days seem to have got bigger and sturdier and are spreading out to fill the space.
Today we have started tackling one of the last areas of the garden which was covered in black plastic while we went travelling, a bank of earth behind our garage and next to the steps up to the lawn. I have been growing zillions of sedum cuttings to fill in this area. It should be finished very soon if, as promised, this weather holds.
Now that they have got started, it looks as though we will succeed in growing a lot of food-plants for next winter and spring, which will save us quite a bit of money if, as predicted, the prospect of Brexit continues to wreck our farming economy and deter imports. But what about the people who don't have anywhere to grow food or don't know how to do it? It will be a difficult and unwelcome climate for them.
We were in Newfoundland last July, which was enjoying blissful sunny weather like this after a long cold wet winter/spring which had kept the icebergs in or just outside their main port until about now (there was still one berg visible at sea when we arrived). Newfoundland is at a similar latitude to the UK and its weather is probably what ours would be like if the Gulf Stream wasn't there. Long wet winter and short hot summer, anyone?
I tried to get my summer garden planting going in April soon after Easter and had multiple failures, even with seeds in pots on window ledges indoors. It was clearly too cold, even for sturdy Yorkshire veg, then suddenly everything started to zoom into growth when the sun came out. I have had great success with growing winter-crop plants like cabbage, chard, beetroot, turnips for their green top growth which is tasty in salads with fresh herbs. What I do is take enough seedlings to grow on for full-size vegetables and leave the rest for garden salad. I have also planted lots and lots of our favourite potatoes (the old-fashioned variety, Pink Fir Apple) as well as digging out all the potato plants that have appeared randomly all over the place and putting them into potato bags to grow on for an earlier crop.
For the first time in many years I bought in some bedding plants (nearly 300 flowers for about £25) and I have only just got them all out into the places where they will grow permanently. Mick has written elsewhere about Yorkshire Sedum close-planting our steepest slopes with sedum, which in only a few days seem to have got bigger and sturdier and are spreading out to fill the space.
Today we have started tackling one of the last areas of the garden which was covered in black plastic while we went travelling, a bank of earth behind our garage and next to the steps up to the lawn. I have been growing zillions of sedum cuttings to fill in this area. It should be finished very soon if, as promised, this weather holds.
Now that they have got started, it looks as though we will succeed in growing a lot of food-plants for next winter and spring, which will save us quite a bit of money if, as predicted, the prospect of Brexit continues to wreck our farming economy and deter imports. But what about the people who don't have anywhere to grow food or don't know how to do it? It will be a difficult and unwelcome climate for them.
