April 2020 provisionally sunniest on record for UK
Author: Mat Office Press Office
16:35 (UTC+1) on
Tue 28 Apr 2020
Although many of us have seen a marked change in the weather today the provisional early statistics show that for the UK as a whole it has been the sunniest April on record (figures dating back to 1929).
Between the 1st and 27th of April 215.8 hours of sunshine have been recorded, 46% above the average for April, and beating the previous record set in 2015 of 211.9 hours of sunshine. This has been the result of persistent high-pressure systems over or close to the UK resulting in an extended spell of fine, dry and sunny weather since late March.
I have to say as an #IsolatedGardener who can't get to his allotment at the moment to water his trees and parsnips, that this is so true and pissing me off greatly. It's April and has to be one of the driest on record I should imagine (whats happened to the April showers that bring the flowers that bloom in May?). In fact the photo in the bottom right corner has more cloud than I have seen in a week. The reduction in the use of cars and aircraft has made a significant difference to the air quality and the clearness off the skies during the day and at night. Wouldn't be great if we could all stay in our own countries and help heal the earths atmosphere.
Photo of how I left the traditional tomato growing area tonight, which is a whole lot more tidy than it was before I started tonight, as I had many flower buckets stacked so as to reduce the weeds and stop the local cats from using them as a toilet. Before lockdown I had started to clear the spent compost/coir mix and was taking it down as soil improver for the new beds. The problem now is that I'm using four of the deep buckets as mini compost bins and that I'm having to decant the spent soils to put fresh in for the spuds, then refill with spent compost and re-cap with fresh compost.
I had a brain wave in that I was given a 6 Gallon or 22 Litre Black with Handles Root Pouch at the Gardening Press Event in March to play with. If I grow some spuds in this then I can loose some more of the old compost/coir spent compost and I can lug the Root Pouch into it's final location when I decide where that will be.
For more info see http://www.rootpouch.com for some reason I can not access this web site from my computer using 4 different browsers and I have CCleaned my computer. I can however gain access via my mobile phone. I have brought the problem to the attention of the UK marketing company IKON for them to find out why
So four Pentland Javelin seed potatoes as they are small and I have a few to many into the Root Pouch
Top up with last years spent MPC & Coir
Final topping of fresh B&Q Verve Compost
Onto the eight flower bucket and three small seed potatoes in this bucket
Filled again with spent MPC & Coir mix to within 50mm of the handle
Final 50mm of new Verve compost
There is bubble wrap under the module and up the short sides of the mushroom tray and insulation packing from something I saved along the long sides. That and a sheet of bubble wrap cut and put over the spuds at night have stopped them from getting frost damaged in the Norfolk Space Saver Greenhouse. The excess spuds were re-bagged and donated to my neighbour via the roof of his shed over the fence observing social distancing.
BioGrow City Jungle filled up with B&Q Verve ready for spuds and a timber decking tile temporaty cover to keep the cats off from using it as a loo.
So this is what I'm left with. 1 - 4 front and back row now have Pentland Javelin spuds in. The two damaged but not destroyed fence panels from the retaining wall will be fixed together and used as a climbing frame for Cucumbers in the shallow flower buckets, so that's 9 &10 back row buckets accounted for. Now I need to think about what I can grow in the remaining buckets. I have some sweet potatoes ordered so I need to leave some room for those. Perhaps some French beans, sweed & parsnip. I have just received something that will free up four spaces that would have been tomatoes along the path, more on that to come later.....
As you will know if you are a regular reader of manVslug.uk I'm self isolating and shielding my wife from the Coronavirus as she is very high risk and as much as I would like too, and I'm allowed too, I have resisted the call of the allotment (so far!) this means that I'm looking at ways to be inventive and grow more than just tomatoes at home in my postage stamp garden. I placed this photo and the text below on my favourite Facebook group Allotment & Garden Club - Mind Your Peas and Cues:- "I found another two of these after taking this photograph, a couple will be used for Radish and a couple for lettuce now I need to decide what I can get away with growing in the remaining four and where I'm going to put these so the bleeding cats that visit the garden don't use them as litter trays. Any suggestions they are 270 x 230mm on plan and 100mm deep to the bottom of the carrying handle.#IsolatedGardeners" Lots of discussion about cats and ways of keeping them off , from growing mint, which I have and appears to have no effect on them but the two main suggestions not around the square flower buckets and where did I get them from were from:- Beau Dendyso worth a go Other salad like Rocket, carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, leeks. I use wooden bar b q sticks in mine to keep the cats off! Claire BillingtonYou can put canes in and cover with net to keep the cats and birds off. How about peas/ beans. Margaret AdamsRadish, spring onions Sarah Bee I would try Beetroot Four of these containers were made up for an experiment that I did using leeks and spring onions in the past, so I know they are an option, but I can't see 100mm depth of soil being enough for Cauliflower & Cabbage. I don't grow peas and my daughter will not eat them after seeing a maggot come out of one when I was getting them out of the pods. Looking at the spacing diagram for the metric version of Square Foot Gardening I made some time ago for inspiration of variety and spacing. Normally I grow 100's of beetroots at the allotment and pickle, but I could grow a few fresh beetroots they would work out at 16 to a bucket and 9 French beans
So based on the Mel Bartholomew guidance in his original book that I have a copy off, I should be able to get 16 Radish in a 300x300mm plan area. The square buckets are a little smaller than that, but it looks like a good idea.
Especially when I dibbed some holes in to take the radish plug plants that I have been growing in the greenhouse after watching Charles Dowding sow them in modules that way.
I had left then longer than Charles did before planting them out and as a result they had got a little tangled with their neighbours, but after a while I managed to ease them appart, and lesson leant get them in before they grow too big and get matted in the future.
I love these CMH Modules it's so easy to pop the plug plants you want and the root structure is really good.
Placing the first six the recommendation on spacing look righ-ish
3 rows worth 12 modules worth and a few had just started to swell at the base of the stem
I'm now pondering about sowing the next cut down box directly as that will give me coms continuity of harvest
Recalling what Beau Dendy suggested I found a pack of BBQ Skewers that I bought at the end of season sale in TESCO last year and turned the bucket into an anti-cat hedgehog
Seven of the eight deep buckets cleared of last years compost. New compost added to a depth of approx. 125mm and two Pentland Javelin seed potatoes placed in the bottom of each bucket, then filled to within 50mm of the top of the handle slot with last years compost/coir mix and a 50mm layer of new compost added so that nutrients can wash and migrate down as it rains into the bucket. The pack says sow mid to late March, but I usually wait until the danger of a hard frost is over. Growing time is around 10 - 12 weeks so these should be ready for harvesting between the 28th June and the 12th July-ish. With most first earlies when the flowers open on the halum or vegetation that grows to about 600mm in height that is an indication that the potatoes are ready for harvesting. It's only maincrop potatoes that one has to wait for the foliage to turn yellow and start to die back before harvesting. If all conditions are ideal, you may harvest about five to 10 potatoes per plant for your gardening efforts. Yields are based on both the care your give your plants during the growing season and the variety of potatoes you choose to grow. I've never seen what is expected of Pentland Javelin which are baby new potatoes. Again with all potatoes carefully dig up, and in my case empty the bucket out, harvest the tubers (spuds) and leave them to dry for a few hours and then store in a cool dark place. Pentland Javelin are great for boiling and salads and they were a bag that I picked up for B&Q when I visited before the lockdown.
The spikey anti-cat hedgehog has been used buckets I don't have lids for and now it was getting chilly and the light was going at around 8pm so I had a tidy covered my tomatoes with the bubble wrap mushroom tray, closed the greenhouse up and called it a day.
My new toy for the allotment arrived yesterday, curtesy of the marketing manager for WORX that I met at the Gardening Press Event in March. I just wish it was safe to go down to the allotment to play with it on my greenhouse and all the dirty planting membrane sheets and paving slabs I have planned to use it on. For now I will have a play in the back garden at home, but I'm really looking forward to not shielding the wife and being able to get down to the allotment plot once more to test it out.
Some of the videos on YouTube are of the early single speed or pressure version that didn't have the (1) Pressure Setting Switch and were not supplied with any accessories at all. Excerpt from the manual below:-
The WG62E-1 version I have been sent includes the (18) Soap Bottle, (19) Brush, and (20) Foldable Water Bucket. Items 23 - 25 are not provided.
(23) The Turbo Nozzle is not supplied with the 20V version only the 40V version of the product so I have bought one to test out and will let you know how I get on with it.
There are cheaper versions of this Nozzle on ebay directly from China, but you have to ask yourself do you want to purchase and take delivery of anything from China at the moment and in the future come to that?
I was tempted to buy the bottle cap connector but I think WORX have screwed this one up because you have to remove the male Hozelock type connector in order to install it, which begs the question why can't they make one with a Hozelock end?
So what will one of these cost you?
The RRP for the WG629E.1 is £149.99 but as with everything shop around but make sure you are looking at the same thing as there are different codes for the newer brushless model and then it appears you can buy body only without the battery and any accessories. Some sellers have reduced the prices but also removed items from what they are selling.
Older models are out there but I couldn't find anything to advise me what the difference in specification was between a WG625E and a WG629E the WG630E is the newer brushless model but it's more expensive and comes with less accessories.
If I can get guidance from POSITEC I will update this post. Follow the WORX label on the left of the blog for more information when I actually get to play with the beast and can report further on my experience with it.
Bio8
was founded by entrepreneur Andrew Hiron in 2006, he created the envii product
range, the small company currently has 14 members of staff and is based in Chesterfield
and it supplies a range of organic products for the Garden, Pond and Household. The garden products include Compost & Additives, Lawn Care, Organic Gardening,
Plant Fertilisers & Pest Control.
Until
this month, 90% of their sales came from Amazon and the remainder from its own
e-commerce website. Being concerned that Amazon had reduced the categories of
garden and pond items to be restocked, due to focussing on household staples and
medical supplies. In
addition with gardeners UK-wide champing at the bit and ready to garden, and
those in lockdown wanting to make more use of their gardens and grow food for the
first time, plus the availability of fertilisers and growing aids suddenly and
severely being in short supply and restricted due to garden centres and many DIY sheds closed until
further notice.
Bio8 decided to create an envii specific website www.envii.co.uk for direct on line sales for gardeners in addition to the www.bio8.co.ukweb site, which now focuses on Industrial Cleaning,
Land Remediation & Polyurethane Removal side of the business.
The
company has seen such a massive increase in sales during the lockdown that it
has had to warn Royal Mail to send bigger collection vans. It’s uplifting to
hear of the UK based small company doing well during these times, and if our
economy is to recover after the lockdown we will need to look at buying local
and supporting British Industry.
The
three products that were of interest to me as an #IsolatedGardener with no
access to my allotment and not having plant feed products at home were Feed and
Protect, Feed and Fortify and as I’m trying to compost at home on a small scale
the Compost Accelerator, and I'm looking forward to playing with them and reporting my findings.
As
a benefit of buying directly from Envii, they offer free delivery to the whole
of the UK as standard. This is applicable to their entire product range, from a
small packet of Sludge Klear tablets, to a large container of SeaFeed Xtra.
For
their customers outside of the UK, delivery charges will be calculated and
applied during the checkout process. They use a range of couriers for
international deliveries to give them the ability to offer the cheapest
shipping rates for their customers.
All
orders that are ordered before 2pm Monday-Friday will be shipped the same day.
Orders placed after this time will be dispatched the next working day.
In
addition they use packaging materials that can be repurposed and composted,
these guys walk the walk as well as talk the talk on being environmentally
friendly, If you visit their web site and scroll to the bottom of the home page and register for their newsletter you
will get a 10% discount code for your first order.
The small print - I have not been paid to write this article, just great to hear of a small UK Company having success in these difficult times.
As I suspected and feared the next few nights are going to be cold and in some places in the UK a frost is likely, the little chaps in the 77 module tray will be coming into the Kitchen over night.
So I wanted to give those larger boys in the vending machine cups some form or additional protection, as the lowest predicted temperature was a few off from frost levels locally I came up with this
A mushroom tray covered in bubble wrap!
All the same variety, but different rates of germination and speed or growth, and a couple more yellow than their fellows...… Why?
I was hoping that the tomatoes may not need potting up before the threat of a frost was behind us. In the South East of England my last frost date is the end of April, last night the temperatures were down to 2 degrees C in the space saver and my tomatoes came into the house for the evening.
I decided that today the 15 tallest of the seedlings should be potted on into vending machine cups and placed in a 3 x 5 (15) Module seed tray.
The root systems of all those that I potted up were well formed for such young plants. Using my small finger I managed to push up the seedlings plug. Each tomato was planted at depth such that the top of the compost came up to the seedling leaves.
Here was the result once the tallest had been potted on. The vending machine cups have two holes melted in the bottoms using a soldering iron and I wash and reuse the cups each year.
The tomatoes were returned to the Norfolk Space Saver greenhouse for the remainder of the day. The forecast is for a low of 5C at approximately 5am tomorrow morning so the potted up tomatoes will be covered with a mushroom tray covered in bubblewrap and their younger more delicate brothers will once again come in for the night returning to the greenhouse as the temperature reach around 10 degrees C. The Radish in the left of the photo look well enough advanced to be placed into deeper trays for growing on to maturity. Radish is something that our local small Tesco does not seem to be carrying in stock since before the lock down.
A mixture of 600mm and 666mm wide sheets cut from the 50m x 2m wide roll 1x 800mm wide roll so that makes a total of 4 x 800mm wide path rolls 3.5m long 13 x 600mm (some slightly wider) path rolls 3.5m long
The extra 600mm wide rolls will extend the Dalek composting area. So now I need to make some 2.4m x 1.2m Blank bed sheets so the offcut will be 800mm long so once I have made another 3 blank bed sheets I will have the required amount to sheets to complete the paths shown above.
This is the only positive to come out of the lockdown and the dry bright weather in that I have time to get in advance of myself on path weed membrane production. I have just heard from other tenants that the one person who tells everyone he hates woodchip paths had spent the last two days moving what was left of the pile in the car park to his plot!. Strange times indeed.
