Keep a weekly record with notebook or smartphone
The joy of a day on the plot underneath a cloudless blue sky should come hand in hand with a prompt that the same clear sky at night can produce a sharp fall in temperature. The emerging foliage of early potatoes is particularly at risk of frost damage. I’ve been known to cause amusement among the family as I grab a draw hoe and hurry down to the plot to earth up potatoes and fling fleece over tender plants as darkness falls.
It’s an anxious time as far as soft fruit and tree fruits are concerned. Decades ago gardeners worried about bullfinches stripping buds off fruit trees, but they have become quite rare. According to the British Trust for Ornithology, the population has declined by nearly 40 per cent in the last 50 years. Bird damage on my plot usually comes from pigeons. Just now I hope for warm sunny days to encourage the pollinating insects to work their magic among the raspberries and strawberries. Nor do we need any cold snaps. Ice crystals forming in the emerging buds on fruit trees can damage them beyond recovery.
Ice crystals forming in the emerging buds on fruit trees can damage them beyond recovery
A few years ago, I visited some Canadian wineries and noticed wind machines in the fields. On enquiry it turned out that these were used to mitigate the effects of frosts on fruit buds by pulling down warmer air from above and raising the temperature around the vines. Not an option on my plot to protect my small plum trees, but it’s worth remembering that some sheltered spots can be the most susceptible to frost.
In days gone by, professional gardeners kept regular records about what they did each week, what was flowering and the temperature and rainfall. Just along the coast from my allotment plot, Professor Fred Last carried out some fascinating research from 1978 to 2007. He kept weekly records of the flowering periods of more than 200 species in his garden and tied these in with the prevailing weather at the time, enabling him to identify species most affected by soil and air temperatures. There are still some of us who prefer to use a notebook and pencil for jotting these things down but for the more technologically minded there are computer apps. Smartphones usually have pretty useful cameras, and just a photo of a tree in blossom or some emerging seedlings serves as an aidememoire for the future. n