Peaks and Troughs
Just a week ago we were enjoying a few days of sunny weather - a couple of them reaching the dizzying heights of 22 degrees (quite something for the High Peak in May!). Suddenly the garden was drawing me out constantly and I entered an enthusiastic mini-phase of planting and growing - one not seen, quite honestly, for many months after such prolonged spells of dismal weather. It all rather went to my head and, once this weather kicked in, it was hard to believe that it would be so short-lived. Hey ho - how silly was that! Within about 72 hours we returned once more to the mists and biting winds, the hail and the driving rain that seems to have plagued us all for so long. I guess it is my own fault for creating a new walled vegetable garden. This in itself was guaranteed to ensure 10 long years of cold, wet summers. My apologies to all you horticulturists out there - I take full blame!
So, in a burst of sun-crazed activity I put in over 100 plants gleaned variously from my new gardener, the nursery, the garden centre, the pet shop (yes!) and our local Thursday market; I sowed broad beans and French beans, peas and annuals; I transplanted seedling plants of lettuce (Lollo Rosso and Little Gem) and red onions (Red Baron); I put in onion sets and garlic; I put chitted Early and 2nd Early potatoes into potato bags; I constructed pea and bean supports and I dug over the remaining raised beds. And then the arctic conditions returned and froze my enthusiasm again! We were warned that tonight we may even get snow....
It is true that you can still get ground frosts up until 21st May, the magic date. Yet with today's random weather patterns I don't actually believe this to be an accurate figure anymore. I'm quite sure that, these days, you could get frost in July! Indeed, it is rather dispiriting that, just as I am coming to the end of my three years studying horticulture, that we have endured some of the three worst summers I can remember since we moved up here - and believe me, there have been a few!
Returning from being away in August last year, in the full knowledge that I had missed absolutely nothing in terms of summer weather here, I felt my empathy for all things green and living fairly dissolving in the September rains. There was barely a flower left in the garden and it was so consistently cold and wet that you never wanted to venture out anyway. I remember going to sign up for my final year of horticultural study - RHS Level 2 Practical at Reaseheath College - in the sort of weather which was normally reserved for February. It was a shocker. Pouring with rain - absolute stair-rods - and freezing cold. And frankly it has remained like that for most of the last 8 months. Our course has been so difficult because most of the time the plots have either been too wet or too frozen to work - with an ever-present chill and damaging wind.
Current weather patterns are certainly proving a challenge to horticulturists. I for one, do not envy those getting ready for the Chelsea Flower Show - God, the stress, trying to tame and manipulate Nature! No, it is not for the faint-hearted. Yet, however easy it is to lose the faith, how equally quickly it can return. That burst of hot sunshine on Bank Holiday Monday and the day after pretty much doubled the size of my greenhouse plants in 48 hours and all that wet, wintry gloom was dispelled and forgotten in the abundance of chlorophyll and dividing cells.
The other night I was dipping into a bedside book called The Joy of Gardening and from which I would like to quote two contrasting passages of despair:-
Last night there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden...It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.
Nathanial Hawthorne, The American Notebooks, 1883
and hope:-
It was the month of March, the days were growing longer, winter was departing; winter always carries with it something of our sadness. Then April came, that daybreak of summer, fresh like every dawn, gay like every childhood; weeping a little sometimes like the infant that it is. Nature in this month has charming gleams which pass from the sky, the clouds, the trees, the fields, and the flowers, into the heart of man.
Victor Hugo, nineteenth century
For every peak, there is a corresponding trough, and vice-versa. So while the rain lashes against my windows and my husband returns home soggily in the dead of this miserable night, announcing his need to move to warmer, sunnier climes, I know that there is a sun out there in the big wide universe and that it will shine again. One day....
https://plus.google.com/photos/106303722317435091770/albums/5875698315030460561?authkey=Gv1sRgCKr_j6v885TczgE
So, in a burst of sun-crazed activity I put in over 100 plants gleaned variously from my new gardener, the nursery, the garden centre, the pet shop (yes!) and our local Thursday market; I sowed broad beans and French beans, peas and annuals; I transplanted seedling plants of lettuce (Lollo Rosso and Little Gem) and red onions (Red Baron); I put in onion sets and garlic; I put chitted Early and 2nd Early potatoes into potato bags; I constructed pea and bean supports and I dug over the remaining raised beds. And then the arctic conditions returned and froze my enthusiasm again! We were warned that tonight we may even get snow....
It is true that you can still get ground frosts up until 21st May, the magic date. Yet with today's random weather patterns I don't actually believe this to be an accurate figure anymore. I'm quite sure that, these days, you could get frost in July! Indeed, it is rather dispiriting that, just as I am coming to the end of my three years studying horticulture, that we have endured some of the three worst summers I can remember since we moved up here - and believe me, there have been a few!
Returning from being away in August last year, in the full knowledge that I had missed absolutely nothing in terms of summer weather here, I felt my empathy for all things green and living fairly dissolving in the September rains. There was barely a flower left in the garden and it was so consistently cold and wet that you never wanted to venture out anyway. I remember going to sign up for my final year of horticultural study - RHS Level 2 Practical at Reaseheath College - in the sort of weather which was normally reserved for February. It was a shocker. Pouring with rain - absolute stair-rods - and freezing cold. And frankly it has remained like that for most of the last 8 months. Our course has been so difficult because most of the time the plots have either been too wet or too frozen to work - with an ever-present chill and damaging wind.
Current weather patterns are certainly proving a challenge to horticulturists. I for one, do not envy those getting ready for the Chelsea Flower Show - God, the stress, trying to tame and manipulate Nature! No, it is not for the faint-hearted. Yet, however easy it is to lose the faith, how equally quickly it can return. That burst of hot sunshine on Bank Holiday Monday and the day after pretty much doubled the size of my greenhouse plants in 48 hours and all that wet, wintry gloom was dispelled and forgotten in the abundance of chlorophyll and dividing cells.
The other night I was dipping into a bedside book called The Joy of Gardening and from which I would like to quote two contrasting passages of despair:-
Last night there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden...It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart.
Nathanial Hawthorne, The American Notebooks, 1883
and hope:-
It was the month of March, the days were growing longer, winter was departing; winter always carries with it something of our sadness. Then April came, that daybreak of summer, fresh like every dawn, gay like every childhood; weeping a little sometimes like the infant that it is. Nature in this month has charming gleams which pass from the sky, the clouds, the trees, the fields, and the flowers, into the heart of man.
Victor Hugo, nineteenth century
For every peak, there is a corresponding trough, and vice-versa. So while the rain lashes against my windows and my husband returns home soggily in the dead of this miserable night, announcing his need to move to warmer, sunnier climes, I know that there is a sun out there in the big wide universe and that it will shine again. One day....
https://plus.google.com/photos/106303722317435091770/albums/5875698315030460561?authkey=Gv1sRgCKr_j6v885TczgE
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