February 22nd 2026: plenty of rain, time on our hands and preparing to update for the first time in quite sometime…
November has arrived, and the leaves are finally tumbling in significant numbers.
October, though wetter than usual, was also a little milder than usual, and although the leaves on most trees turned in complexion, they seemed determined to cling onto their branches at all costs. However, a noticeable drop in temperature challenged their ability to defy seasonal gravity, and almost overnight the woodland floors, pathways, pavements and the road gullies are covered in nature’s familiar autumnal detritus Axminister.
The monster has but parsnips left in its open beds, and after the wettest July, September and October on record even these hardy stalwarts it must be said are showing the stress of having had their feet in too wet conditions for too long, and although the rest of the measure is emptied of stock, it remains far too wet to consider any type of groundwork. So to negate causing more damage by tramping on sodden clay, we’ll probably leave any attempt to cultivate and supplement till early next spring,
We have our stores of onions and frozen rhubarb; Mrs. Dirtdigger has jarred and prepared her tomato pasta sauces, whilst all the blackcurrant and plum jams are cupboarded for the winter months.
We selected a number of this year’s pumpkins and set them aside specifically for culinary use, and we will update the menus tab in due course. We have dried all the chilli peppers and will also make some jars of our favourite spiced staple, Harissa in the coming week or so.
We still have salad greens on-the-go in the polytunnel: winter lettuce, scallions and some spinach and truth be told they are performing better than the summer crop, and should see us up to the first hard frosts.
The last of the daffodil and tulip bulbs are planted, and we also set some buddleia and gooseberry hardwood cuttings while there is still some late autumn heat in the soil.
We have begun the annual winter scheduled potting shed clean up, and Mrs Dirtdigger has fastidiously scrubbed every empty pot and seed tray in readiness for next year. The plans are being drafted for a new year-new look approach into some elements of the plot as we set about mixing things up a little. We’ve foraged all our sweet-pea, titonia, cosmos, poppy and tansy seeds and these have been dried and labelled for next year’s instalment.
The days may be getting shorter, and the months this year to date have undoubtedly been wetter than usual. It may very well be that this is due in no small part to climate change, but one thing is certain and that is that winter is coming, and however severe or mild it may turn out to be will always be a hindsight assessment. But the garden needs rest, and sometimes the gardener too needs to take a lesson from the garden in this regard. Met Eireann, our National Met service has just issued its first red weather advisory of the season for severe wind and gusts as storm Debbie hurtles toward us, so time to batten the hatches, and perhaps, from some safe vantage point, watch as mother nature provides a crazy burlesque and strips everything bare on the biggest stage of all…
April may well be ‘the cruellest month’, but make no mistake March 2023 was definitely one of the wettest. It rained most days, and on days it didn’t rain it certainly showered, substantially. On two days we had rainfall of over 2” each day, and by month’s end everything was saturated, sodden and soaked. It was the many weathered month, but this year March certainly brought more rain than any other of the meteorological seasonal variants. Every plot on the allotment site suddenly has a freeform pond, roadside verges have disappeared neath drive thru’ splash pools, potholes are puddled, gardens and parklands are soft to boggy and thousands of hectares of arable farmland now lye under unchartered springtime lakes. Everything has been thoroughly washed; cleansed even, and provisional statistics from Met Éireann having been verified; it seems March 2023 was the wettest since 1947, and that particular year was the wettest on record, records going back to 1781. Did we mention it was a bit rainy…
Springtime gardeners, as always, have been chomping at the bit, waiting for days to lengthen and temperatures to rise so as to get out and grubby the hands, and thus work the dead land once again. But that has not been so easy to do this year; and we must be mindful that as much as any gardener may bemoan the volume of rain so far this year, the gardens have loved it. Everything is green and verdant, which, by and large is one and the same thing, but there is no simpler way to underscore just how much all that March rain has done for the garden; sodden gardeners, yet satisfied gardens…
The extreme wet conditions have forced us to change-tack a little on the monster’s measure. Eight days into April and we have yet to put our seed potatoes to bed. We did however manage to plant up some bags of Maris Pipers and Desiree maincrop, whilst we are more than happy that the beetroot, turnip, parsnip and scallion seed has all germinated. We’ve sown sunflower and titonia which are up and at it, and in the last few days we also sowed pumpkin, golden squash seed and plenty of basil and coriander. Today we sowed Redbor kale and wild rocket before once more having to take some serious shelter.
April has taken-up where March left off. This year we have April showers aplenty; on April 1st a scattered shower passed or’ and finally cleared on the 3rd. We may be working under cover a good deal but we are making progress. We finally have the monster’s new polythene measure good-to-go. All the creeping thistle root was painstakingly dug out by Mrs Dirtdigger during the dark days of January and February, and we put the first of the Moneymaker seedlings into their new tunnelled home in this last week; a little early perhaps, but although wet this year, the temperature is holding about average.
Our little patch of dead land may not have lilacs breeding from it, but it does have a fabulous crop of Timperley Early and Victoria rhubarb, some already baked into pies, already stewed into compote, and all compliments of the aqueous exigencies of many weathered March.
April is doing its April thing as we type. Silver grey skies are showering the stretching foxgloves, aquilegia and bearded-irises; the late muscari and early camassia spikes shine against the last of the daffodils Narcissus Thalia, one of the monster’s favourites. We have lettuce and cabbage seeds to sow, peas, borlotti beans and melons still to get going, clumps of lovage to split and tarragon to relocate while still early enough to do so, and so, we’ll get going and get sowing…
March, being March, has thrown everything plus the kitchen sink into the spring weather mix so far this year. The month began on a cooler than normal note with north westerlies chilling the early green shoots; cool gave way to cold and cold became five days of sleet, snow and icy nights. We’ve had blustery sunshine, driving rain, slate grey skies and localized flooding. March many weathers has delivered in style, but spring is here and nature’s urge to get up and growing is now insuppressible. As conditions allowed, we stomped the monster’s measure and have managed to get the Javelin parsnip seed to bed, and also move the Stuttgarter sets from their starter pots into terra firma, along with the Ailsa Craig seedlings and a new variety we are trying for the first time this year, Pink Panther, a small reddish-pink French variety.
The Moneymaker have been potted on as have the aubergine and pepper seedlings. We will go again with the petunia seed mix; we took our eye off them and they dampened-off, not surprising given the chill weeks at the start of the month.
The national holiday has come and gone and we, as a nation celebrated in style with many towns and villages organizing St Patrick’s Day parades for the first time since before the pandemic. The usual global greening of many of the world’s well know structural landmarks has been curtailed as a show of acknowledgement of having to be environmentally responsible, but there was the usual national greening with all-and-sundry decked-out in a fabulous array of jumpers and cardies, badges and rosettes, hats and scarves, shamrocks and harps and then to ice the cake it seemed the whole country watched as our rugby team delivered on years and years of promise.
We have, at last, tripped the other side of the equinox. There is now more day than night; not so much dark, and slowly increasing light.
Feverfew and tarragon, camomile and chives, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme all the early fayre of the herb bed, waving green in a celebration of what spring brings.
All things being equal March has so far done what we expect March to do every year. We’ve managed to have the year’s first produce from the measure with some absolutely fabulous early rhubarb from the Timperley Early stools. We have so many packets of seed to empty and sow in the next 4 weeks, but we will balance hope and expectation with effort and creation and perhaps achieve a certain equanimity for the monster’s measure as we stride into spring this year.
Monster In The Corner... 