Groundhog Day

The weather on February 2nd, Groundhog Day or Candlemas, is supposed to give an indicator as to how long winter will last; if sunny, winter will return; if gloomy it will be over soon. Well, this year was gloomy but with enough sun to cast shadows at the critical time of 11am. Even without that it's easy to see that the current cold snap is set to continue for a while - last week we had heavy, but brief, snow on Thursday and since then clear cold frosty weather.
I have some snowdrops struggling to come out though - to say how early the buds were showing, the flowers are taking a long while to appear.

 Inside, I have tomatoes, cauliflowers and winter salad leaves set in propagators, and herbs on the windowsill - basil (left) and parsley.

Waiting.....

There's not a lot going on with either garden or allotment at the moment. Some repairs have been needed on the shed and poly-greenhouse. At home I've been clearing up last year's dead stalks and leaves to give a clearer view of the snowdrops pushing through.

Mainly though it's a time for sowing seeds and waiting.....  The sweet peas set just after Christmas are showing their first shoots now, and the first of the propagators is full with trays and pots of onions and tomatoes. Soon there'll be windowsills filled with seedlings...but not quite yet..

Two gifts

First, some daffodils from the shop to cheer up the house and pretend that Spring is here. I picked some forsythia from the garden which will hopefully burst into flower, and found some fallen pussy willow twigs on the playing fields.













And from a friend, a double layered box of apples - very handy as the ones I have in store are ripening and rotting too quickly. I had to move things round quickly to find space, so pumpkins are having to share space with apples.

Settling in to the New Year

After Christmas's snow and frost, the weather seems to have settled back to mild but windy - VERY windy at times! We had a quick trip to the allotment last week, mainly to check up on things but also to plant out the Christmas tree in its new spot, add some extra ties to the new found-on-freegle pear tree and sow some late garlic bulbs bought in a sale. There's not really anything to pick at the moment - a row of parsnips waiting till I need them, and some kale coming ready for maybe next month. I've given up hope for any brussels - none are forming proper sprouts at all!
At home, I can see the buds on the snowdrops so it shouldn't be long before they're in flower.

New Year, after the snow, round-up

 Last week's snow disappeared mysteriously overnight .....










and a crocus emerged!







The winter jasmine hasn't stopped flowering just because of a little cold weather but started so early that it's nearly finished.








 Neither snowdrops nor daffodils look any worse for several days under snow and ice.










 And although a little ratty round the edges the polyanthuses are picking up








 the cauliflowers look battered but hopefully they'll recover

 Hoping with some mild days I'll have spinach and american land cress to pull again by the end of the week

 and fortunately temperatures didn't drop low enough to worry the seedlings in the greenhouse.

Still snowy...

 The Boxing Day snowfall is still here - thawing slightly during the day but freezing again at night.

















The forsythia continues to flower bravely...

really early daffodils

...and other flowers are re-emerging

polyanthus

polyanthus

red cabbage

but these cauliflowers seem lost completely

Picked this week - up to Christmas

Just before Christmas we pulled in a quick trip to the allotment - and were surprised at how much we found to bring back for dinner.

A reasonably sized cabbage - though, when it was peeled, it turned out bugs of some sort had eaten a lot of it!

a couple of stringy radishes








broccoli









from the greenhouse at home - two very late chillies

and from both garden and allotment, a mix of spinach and american land cress.

On Boxing day though, we had a quick heavy fall of snow which shows no signs of melting away even now, three days later, so no more veg picking for a while.