Allotments in bad weather

The March gales certainly put paid to some of our gardening plans! All over the site, people were battening down and preparing for bad weather, which was a good thing, because the storms hit us hard, as they did most people. As you can see in the photograph, the clouds were gathering overhead as most of us were running around trying to get everything tied down, brought in, or tucked under cover.

A lot of allotment holders were in the process of hardening off their autumn sown brassicas – the plants, which have been kept under cover during the winter, need acclimatisation to prepare them for the permanent move to outdoor conditions so it’s been commonplace to see allotment holders carrying trays of young plants out on fine days, to adjust, and bringing them back in overnight, but there was a rush to get them all back indoors, or under protection, when we realised how bad the weather was going to get. It’s going to mean a bit of a check on their progress, as we’ve had four or five days in our region, when there was no opportunity to get them outside without them either blowing away or being drenched by sleety rain, so the hardening off process will now take a week longer than everybody had planned.

Lots of folk were planning to plant out their dormant rhubarb this week too, picking the sunniest spots on their plots to give the stems plenty of chance to turn pink or ruby, depending on variety, but that’s had to be put on hold too, as the ground has been more like a swamp than anything else.

What it has been possible to do, in the breaks in the weather, is divide perennial herbs like mint and chives, as they are outdoors all year anyway, so there’s been at least one task we’ve all been able to get on with. And, of course, because every cloud has a silver lining, we’ve been enjoying watching our water butts and tanks brimming over, which is great because we all prefer to water with rainwater where we can.

Labels: allotment-march, allotment-storms