What has happened to spring?
It certainly is a strange spring. There seem to be wild fluctuations between mild, wet and windy conditions, followed by cold, wet and windy, then perhaps cold, dry and windy, interspersed with the occasional lovely spring-like day. Whichever way you look at it, conditions are not very suitable for good early plant growth.
I planted out a lot of salad crops that got a bit of a beating from the wind and aren’t looking very happy at the moment. Then there’s my early spuds, which down here on the Isles of Scilly we can plant very early (January) because of the lack of frost. We do, however, have another problem - strong and salt-laden winds.
Three weeks ago saw Southerly winds over 90mph, which really battered the spuds, then last week over 60mph, both times with lots of salt in the wind. But they must be hardy spuds, because they’ve bounced back and are looking surprisingly good. I aim to start digging the first week of May, but that all depends on what the weather’s like between now and then.
That’s the thing with growing, you can’t predict the weather - and even if you could you can’t do anything about it!