It has been an unusually early spring, and that has caught gardeners on the hop. However, the weather we're having right now is pretty much normal for April - except we'd like some more of those April showers, please.
In the old cottage gardens, potatoes were traditionally planted on Good Friday. Why, when Easter is in a different place each year, and the weather is to variable? Why - because it was one of the few days the agricultural labourer could rely on having as a day off!!!
Another old way of deciding planting times was to say you could put the potatoes in when you could sit on the ground with your trousers down. Not a technique we'd recommend in the relatively public space of the allotments - although, curiously, not unrelated to the navigational techniques of the Polynesian islanders! However, it is clearly a way of testing soil temperature - much more important for spuds than the air temperature.
You can take a modern approach and buy a cheap soil thermometer. Plant and sow when the soil temperature two inches down (about 5cm) is 5degC or above. Particularly important when sowing parsnips, which hate a cold soil!
Spuds put in now will be a little later but you've still time to get a really good crop. 'Early' varieties aren't especially hardy, they're just quick to mature - so put them in now and you'll be eating the results before you know it.
In the old cottage gardens, potatoes were traditionally planted on Good Friday. Why, when Easter is in a different place each year, and the weather is to variable? Why - because it was one of the few days the agricultural labourer could rely on having as a day off!!!
Another old way of deciding planting times was to say you could put the potatoes in when you could sit on the ground with your trousers down. Not a technique we'd recommend in the relatively public space of the allotments - although, curiously, not unrelated to the navigational techniques of the Polynesian islanders! However, it is clearly a way of testing soil temperature - much more important for spuds than the air temperature.
You can take a modern approach and buy a cheap soil thermometer. Plant and sow when the soil temperature two inches down (about 5cm) is 5degC or above. Particularly important when sowing parsnips, which hate a cold soil!
Spuds put in now will be a little later but you've still time to get a really good crop. 'Early' varieties aren't especially hardy, they're just quick to mature - so put them in now and you'll be eating the results before you know it.
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