So many of the things I planned to do over the 2020/21 winter failed to happen because the ground was so wet and the weather sufficiently unpleasant that they became impossible.
The clogs I wear outdoors became lethal because they have a sole that is almost flat, so I purchased a pair of “welly shoes” to slip on when I needed to quickly go out into the garden or shut the chickens in for the night. They arrived at the start of the last week of March and so began a period of five weeks or perhaps even a little longer with no rain at all. But whilst the days were for a short while sufficiently warm to warrant a switch to wearing shorts, the nights turned so cold that we had frosts night after night.
So many of my plants have demonstrated their objection to the cold, and over the last couple of weeks the dull skies and rain that has now arrived, by refusing to grow very much at all. Even in the greenhouse or out in the open, plants have developed an obvious “lean” towards the Sun such as might normally happen when they’re grown indoors.
This has been incredibly frustrating, but not without any benefits at all. My purple sprouting broccoli has lasted a month or more longer than it would normally have done. This is the last of it, harvested at the end of April before I lifted the plants to convert the space they were in to no dig.
And some things haven’t done so badly, I guess. These are my broad beans just five weeks ago.
And this is them a few days back.
Insect numbers seem to be way down at the moment as well. I see and hear honey bees and bumble bees out working, but very little else, which can’t bode well for those crops that need active pollinators now and over the next few weeks.
Things really need to start to change soon, otherwise they’ll be no time for many crops to mature before the end of the summer.