I know I should but I don’t.
Arthur Richmond, friend, fellow allotmenteer and Copmanthorpe’s best gardener (sadly, no longer with us) did it for years. Yes – he kept a gardening diary. Ask Arthur when he planted his early potatoes and he would check his diary and tell you the exact date, the variety and give you a weather report. If you were to ask me the same question, I would wave a hand vaguely and reply, “eerm….back end of March, early April”
There was so much information in Arthur’s diary. He wrote in it every day, even if it was just to record the weather, so he knew, for example, precisely, year by year, when we had the first and last frosts.
So much useful information in those lovingly kept diaries.
Maybe I will start one next year.
But………I have a confession to make.
I am obsessed with checking the weather forecast.
It is the first thing I do every morning, even before the first draught of tea has passed my lips. Then I am constantly looking at the weather app on my mobile phone during the day. The national forecast on the BBC’s 6pm news is watched avidly, followed by the Look North forecast 20 minutes later. Then both forecasts are watched again with the 10pm news.
Why am I so addicted?
I suppose it is because, as gardeners, so much of what we do is dictated by the weather. It controls when we sow, plant and what we do each day.
Does anyone out there have the same affliction? If you do, maybe we should band together to form a support group to wean ourselves off this terrible obsession of being slaves to weather forecasts.
Tags: weather