Posted on 29.11.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment We have had a very mild autumn with only one frosty night so far. Leaves are still hanging on many of the trees and some plants are still flowering. It is quite unusual that plants which normally flower at…

Posted on 01.11.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment After a cold start to October with one frosty night with -2C it has since then turned quite mild with temperatures reaching 20C during the day and night temperatures around 10C. Some plants have started growing again and the…

Posted on 30.09.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment The little bit of rain we had earlier this month unfortunately did not last long and everything is now quite dry again. At least the grass has turned green again and started growing so I had to get the…

Added in Tales From My Wildlife AllotmentWe had a bit of rain now, but not much and it is still very dry. I feel quite confident, if we don’t get another 40C heatwave, that most of my plants will be fine despite the ongoing drought. I do water some of…

Posted on 31.07.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment July has been exceptionally dry again with just 0.3mm of rain in the whole month. This comes after already 3 very dry months and a heatwave with nearly 40C in mid-July which left the soil parched and damaged some…

Posted on 30.06.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment The allotment is looking very colourful now with many plants such as Dianthus carthusianorum, Verbascum nigrum, Inula, Eryngium, Thalictrum flavum, Lychnis coronaria and Centaurea nigra adding splashes of colour. But the lack of rain is making gardening and caring…

Posted on 30.05.2022 | Updated on 31.05.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment After a long spell of dry weather we finally had some rain. It really does make a difference if the plants are watered with rain water compared to tap water as rain does not normally…

Posted on 01.05.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment Since I wrote the last blog hardly a drop of rain has fallen. Everything is so dry now that cracks are appearing in places and soil has turned to dust. I have stopped planting out any more new plants…

Posted on 31.03.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment We had some warm weather recently with the temperature climbing into double figures. But nights stayed cold and sometimes frosty which held many plants back despite the warm days. All is going to change now with some cold northerly…

Posted on 01.03.2022 | Updated on 05.03.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment February started on a calm and mild note, a welcome change after all the frosty weather in January. Snowdrops started flowering, followed by crocuses, hellebores, primroses and Cornus mas. Honeybees and a few early bumblebee…

Posted on 30.01.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment There were a couple of newspaper articles recently which talked about a milder than usual winter so far with many spring bulbs coming into flower early. I don’t know which area of the UK these articles talked about but…

Posted on 05.01.2022 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment A new year has started which will hopefully be a good one for us gardeners with benign weather, enough rain and lots of sunshine. It is the middle of winter but the weather has been quite odd recently with…

Posted on 01.12.2021 | Updated on 04.12.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment We have had some very cold weather already, with frosty nights and cold days. There was even a bit of snow mixed in. After the long warm autumn this was quite a change, but I…

Posted on 02.11.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment I would like to start this blog with some good news which some probably already know. My wildlife allotment has been chosen as the winning garden in the BBC Gardeners World magazine Gardens of the Year 2021 competition. I…

Posted on 01.10.2021 | Updated on 25.10.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment September is my favourite month of the year. The year is winding down, plants have mostly stopped growing so there is less watering and cutting back to do and more time for pottering around and…

Posted on 02.09.2021 | Updated on 07.09.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment I cannot believe summer is nearly over, time is flying. But September is often still quite a sunny and warm month and some of my perennials are only just starting to flower now, such as…

Posted on 01.08.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment July started quite wet but then turned increasingly dry with even a small heat wave thrown into the mix. We had around six days of temperatures of around 30C and sunshine from morning to evening. After a few days…

Posted on 05.07.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment After a cold and wet May it was a relief to finally get some warm and dry weather at the beginning of June. Plants responded well and grew very fast, the allotment was changing almost on a daily basis…

Posted on 31.05.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment Be careful what you wish for! In April I wished for rain as it was so dry, now we’ve had one of the wettest Mays on record. It is still quite cold and despite having no frosts anymore most…

Posted on 03.05.2021 | Updated on 04.05.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment What a dry and cold spring! We still have lots of frosty nights and hardly any rain. We even had snow a few weeks ago! It was completely unexpected. When I opened the curtains on…

Posted on 30.03.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment Spring has taken its time this year. Night temperatures are mostly still close to 0C despite sunny days and plant growth is very slow so far. The allotment is only slowly greening up with just a few splashes of…

Posted on 01.03.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment After a very cold period in mid-February with temperatures dropping down to -7C and the soil and pond remaining frozen for days on end, we now had some spring-like weather with temperatures up to 15C. What a difference! Suddenly…

Posted on 30.01.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment The New Year started quite cold but when milder weather finally arrived the rain returned as well. I am lucky that my allotment site is well-drained and even with lots of rain we normally don’t get water-logged soil. The…

Posted on 05.01.2021 | Added in Tales From My Wildlife Allotment I really like this time of year as it gives me time to plan and think as there are not many essential gardening tasks to do. I sometimes wake up in the morning with my head full of new…