British weather (for British gardeners)

Crop updates, vagaries of the weather

I popped into the allotment on Sunday morning but did not last a whole hour: it was freezing cold, do not remember ever feeling so cold out there before!

No sign of mushrooms whatsoever, my salad sprouts are still there: green, not wilted but neither grown visibly - not sure what to do with them... will they ever grow further?

There was a feeling of spring, buds looked fat, ready to unfold and open up. I spotted what I thought was a bright pink piece of plastic, but when I went to pick it up I realised it was a rhubarb leaf proudly emerging from the manure.

The primroses around the pond are also doing very well, you can see the yellow of the flowers breaking out of the buds' skin. I planted some seeds: primroses and cowslips as well. They need to go through a period of warmth followed by cold, so I covered them with a plastic bag and some fleece, and I will check them in a month or so before putting them out.

I ran home straight afterwards: my extremities a bit numb and the skin on my face feeling like cardboard. There was a good reason for all that cold: snow was on its way again - an unusual early February Monday in southern England!