Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli

I hold gastro-punk wholly responsible for my new obsession. Actually that's rather unfair, as the poached eggs and croutons n parmy shavings merely combines my summer addiction to Caesar salad with my spring addiction to brassicas. And to think if I wasn't an addict, I'd be off to Sainsbury's to buy a little plastic carton of e.p.s.b. for £1.99."Hello. My name is Amalee and I'm addicted to purple sprouting broccoli in every way it's offered to me."

Pyrus communis "Doyenne du Comice"

Here is a four-year old espalier pear, Doyenne du Comice, which I decided to plant after reading Alan Titchmarsh describe it as "the fattest and juiciest" of pear varieties. Right then, that's the pear for me! It's grown outside against a south facing fence in the herb garden, partially shielded from frosts by an enormous upright rosemary. I like this picture as it shows so clearly the difference between the fatter fruiting buds and the smaller, thinner leaf buds. Identifying the two at pruning time is essential to a successful fruit crop.

The picture below shows the same espalier pear, with a beautiful creeping vine growing through the lower wires. Akebia quinata is a beautiful, scented vine that will overpower this pear eventually, but I'm growing it anyway, and will use the parent vine for cuttings. At least, that's the plan.

Winter Pruning Glass House Apricots

Peaches, nectarines and apricots flower in very early spring, and correct pruning is vital to successful pollination. If growth is congested, the emerging flowers are inaccessible to the very few pollinating insects abroad so early in the year. So we prune out the leafy growth in late winter to perhaps a few inches, or three or four pairs of leaf buds on each branch growing from the main fan-trained branches. The same is done in summer, but here the removal of most of the summer's leaf growth (which can be as much as 2' or 3' long if you take your eye off the game...) is to expose the ripening fruits to the sun. This pruning regime can appear recklessly excessive, even to one whose Felcos are never far from her hand.

Sometimes branches are left for a couple of seasons, then the loppers and pruning saw come out of the box and into action. The top picture shows this spring's growth of fresh new leaves bursting from the site of two sawn branches. The smaller branch growing underneath this sawn branch is being trained to replace the older, thicker branch above it, perhaps in a couple of season's. The third picture shows a similar remedially pruned branch producing new fruiting growth, and the red string in the fourth picture is a visual reminder that further work is required at this point.

In the cool, wet climate of the UK peaches and nectarines are vulnerable to peach leaf curl, Taphrina deformansa, a serious fungal disease prevalent in wet conditions. Fan-training peaches and nectarines in the glass house protects their early blossoms from frosts, and excludes rain so the spores of the peach leaf curl fungus lack the moisture required for germination. So throw out those chemicals, feed the soil not the plant, and plant a very large clump of marjoram or heather at the glass house door, to entice the early insects inside.

Sir Isaac Newton: 4 Jan 1643 - 31 Mar 1727

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27)

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants."

Newton's letter to Robert Hook in February 1676.

Swiss Chard "Bright Lights"

Here are a few plants left in the ground overwinter. Sown in April 2006, these deliciously and randomly coloured brassicas eventually grew to about 2' tall, and as much across. Their fat squeaky leaves top off stems or ribs of the most dazzling colours, white, yellows, reds, ochres, deepest burgundy that bleeds onto your hands and Felco blades. After a good rinse, I chop the stems and stir fry quickly, then throw in the leaves to wilt, then drop them all into a dish covered by a white cheesy sauce, then into the oven to brown. Yummy.

These beauties are "come and cut again" plants, that is, you keep cutting the stems, a few at a time from each plant just enough for each meal. The plant responds by producing more leaves, and over the months you get a succession of fresh and scrunchy leaves. Essentially this is the idea behind rejuvenation pruning, where we take an old or neglected plant and cut out a third of it's growth each year for three years. This minimises the pruning shock to the plant, and ensures that we have at most a three year old plant flowering at its maximum. Some plants are deliberately hard pruned in spring, right to the ground. This rather alarming procedure prompts the plant to produce entirely juvenile growth over the course of a single year or season. This is especially useful if we want to keep vigorous plants within garden boundaries, buddleias for example, or where we want the colourful juvenile / one-year old stems for winter colour, dogwoods.

I've kept last year's Swiss Chard for an entirely different reason. This year the plants will rapidly go to seed, producing huge feathery fronds topped with little bunching flower heads, that give a delightful, airy feel to this work horse of a brassica. It's almost as if left to overwinter into its old age, Swiss Chard finally blossoms into a thing of ethereal beauty, and becomes a magnificent dramatic centrepiece for the vegetable garden. That I know this comes only from my failure to lift all the tired Swiss Chard a few seasons ago, as I was too busy and too tired myself... Sometimes our failures aren't failures, only time imposed upon us to allow something else of greater beauty to come into being.

On Making The Leap Between One Career And Another

Thursday night dinner with friends. The usual catch-up of gossip and opinions, served up alongside uncomplicated food and tumblers rather than wine glasses. I rather like mid-week dinners, they seem to be so much more relaxed and enjoyable, probably because everyone around the table would usually be at home, eating beans on toast in the kitchen with their shoes off. So no-one dresses up, wine in tumblers, plain white china, tea lights on the table rather than candles and flowers, and everyone leaning back in their chairs chatting and idling. "And what does your husband do?" I asked one of the diners. "Well, he used to sell agricultural machinery, but that went belly-up during foot and mouth, so now he does something else. Actually I don't like to talk about his job." The table fell silent instantly. All eyes turned to her, encouragingly, and I said, "Oh go on, tell us. What does he do?" "Well," she said, "He's an arms dealer."

You wouldn't believe it if you read it in a book...

Friday Five: Things To Covet

1. This woman's understanding of colour, and manipulation of cloth, fabric, things, everythings

http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/heather_bailey/

2. This woman's photographs of things she's cooked, and the way she describes her edible journey through her life

http://thestonesoup.com/

3. This woman's vision of our world, through the objects she sees others offering away

http://willows95988.typepad.com/tongue_cheek/

4. This woman's daily walk, and her photographs along the way

http://www.dianevarner.com/index.php?x=browse&category=36&pagenum=1

5. This woman and her blog, and her resultant daily presence in my day

http://saltforthespirit.blogspot.com/index.html

On the Value of Successional Sowing

I appear to have spent the last three days under glass myself; the bulk of my first successional sowings complete. I feel thoroughly marvellous and sensible, and rather like the Wise Virgins. Sowing your seeds in succession means you to sow just enough seeds to raise plants to flower or crop at fortnightly/monthly intervals. This enables you to harvest a continuous supply throughout the growing season, and thus the dreaded glut is avoided.

A glut occurs when all your crops are ready in the same two weeks (along with everyone else's), and you feel duty bound to eat, for example, 178 sweet corn cobs in that fortnight because you grew them and no-one else will take them off your hands. Alternatively, you eat one every night for a week, dripping with Maldon and butter, then decide to turn your kitchen into a veritable canning/freezing factory to avoid eating any more or throwing them to the pigs.

Both are wasteful, and as with all delicious things, moderation is the order of the day. Brassicas are the most forgiving vegetable, as you can still sow 60 seeds each month for three months, and just eat baby-sized cabbages as spring greens, rather than thinning out or allowing to mature to their full size. Mind you, as I wrote in an early post last season, anyone with a prostate should be eating brassicas at least three times each week, so perhaps it's a good thing to ignore successional sowing and go for the brassica glut with gusto. I don't have a prostate so I eat at least four servings each week. I just adore cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflowers, pak choi, and the best of all, mashed swede with lashings of butter and black pepper. Thank goodness I've set on at least a dozen varieties of brassicas this season.

And this morning I set out a double row of broad beans, Imperial Green Longpod, perched on a plank laid out between rows just like Monty Don advises. At least the snow showers held off today, unlike Monday and Tuesday when sowing carrots felt like appearing as an extra in Dr Zhivago.

Further Sowings in the Glasshouse, Spring 2007

Here's the laundry list;
Broccoli "Early Purple Sprouting"
Broccoli "Waltham 29"
Carrot "Early Scarlet Horn"
Dwarf French bean "Canadian Wonder"
Dwarf French bean "Slenderette"
Peas "Tres Hatif D'Annonay"
Tomato "Costoluto Fiorentino"
Tomato "Roma VF"
Mint
Basil "Sweet Genovese"
Aquilegia canadensis
Aquilegia "Firecracker"
Aquilegia vabeana
Morning Glory "Heavenly Blue"
Morning Glory "Skylark Mixed"
Nicotiana sylvestris
Penstemon "Sensation Mix"
Stocks "Giant Perfection Mix"
Stocks "Ten Week Mixed"
Sweet Pea "Honeymoon"
Sweet Pea "Delight"
Sweet Pea "Painted Lady"

March Sowings

Latte2

Latte1

Fort La Latte

On Steps and Stairways

"In gardens frequented by children - and it is a sad place that never knows their hurrying footsteps - unrailed stairs are not without danger. It is not difficult to see that, for young folk, the doorway demands to be made the scene for those swift comings and goings that belong to the search for treasure and the rescue of distressed damsels. The top step is obviously the place for the last stand of a devoted retainer, sworn to defend the brave lady of his absent lord. The shadow of the wall is no less clearly the place where conspirators will gather with hood and lantern, until the door flies open and the heroic knight leaps upon them sword in hand."
Gertrude Jekyll & Lawrence Weaver

Arts & Crafts Gardens

Gardener's World Returns: Pulmonaria

And about time too. Friday nights just aren't the same without the theme tune Morning Light calling me to abandon everything else and come to the sofa with a glass in hand. This 8.30pm deadline is sacrosanct - if I haven't done it before Gardener's World, it isn't going to get done. The theme tune marks the start of my weekend. Lovely.

In this opening programme, Monty Don appears to be sporting a new haircut, slightly longer than we are perhaps used to; maybe it's the light blue colour of his jumper, not a colour I usually associate with my gardening guru. Of course, these are the trivial nonsenses that concern the idle viewer, out of the habit of focusing on the real stars of the show, the glorious plants! And what an opener last night's plants were.

Pulmonaria longifolio "Bertram Anderson"
Pulmonaria or Lungworts are valuable plants, not only for their early pink or blue flowers, but also for their foliage. The clusters of nodding flowers, which attract bees, stand out well against the glossy green leaves. Plants make good trouble-free ground cover for moist shade; they spread slowly and need little care. The Latin root pulmo, gives this plant it's common name, lungwort. The Doctrine of Signatures describes Pulmonaria as an effective remedy for diseases of the lung because the spotted leaves carried on most species were supposed to resemble diseased lungs.

"Pulmonaria rubra" is often one of the first lungworts to flower, with blooms appearing in mid- to late winter.

"Blue Ensign" is one of the earliest varieties to flower, creating a good display of bright, blue blooms throughout March and April. These fade gradually to purple with age. This variety is distinctive because it has plain green foliage.

Spring Daffodils

Thoughts Upon The Nature of Hell and the Afterlife

From "A Time of Angels" by Patricia Schonstein;

"...The Devil stepped back from the violets and, with a look of satisfaction, took off his gardening gloves and asked Primo to help him carry in the pots. Together they lined them up along both kitchen window ledges.

"We have wonderful gardens in Hell," remarked the Devil, dusting the leaves of the violets. "We mirror the gardens of earth, and the seasons. Some are laid out with beautiful walkways and fountains and recesses where souls can sit and ponder. Others we leave wild, to seed themselves and follow their own designs. In spring the whole of Hell is heady with fragrance." He paused. "I speak of the Underworld, of course. Nothing grows in Deep Hell." He paused again. "Well, that is not entirely true. There is a garden there. It is a paper garden, a garden of flowers folded from papyrus and linen paper. And it is quite beautiful, for the flowers are exquisitely made. They are not brightly coloured, but have the natural tones of the papers we use: whites and creams and buffs. They are laid out in formal gardens, like works of art, and there is a stillness because there are no bees or butterflies. Nor is there any fragrance to speak of." He smiled. "You are wondering who folds the flowers?" he asked, reading the question in Primo's eyes. "They are made by those in the Underworld who do not play cards."

Idle Days, Lazy Days...

On a Weekend of Sunshine and Blustery Westerly Winds

I stripped all the bed linens this morning and laundered them in my favourite oceanic Bold for no other reason than the weatherman forecast a weekend of sunshine and blustery winds. By 7am the washing lines were hung with white sheets and pillow cases, blowing nearly horizontal in the westerly winds, billowing and cracking as they filled with air.

There are few things more lovely than sleeping in a bed of wind dried bedlinen. I remember a similar weekend last summer, and waking to the sounds of the white cotton curtains moving and rustling as they blew against the open windows. Every so often they were caught by the cool draughts and billowed up to the ceiling, letting in the bright white light of early summer mornings. I thought for a moment that I had woken up on the deck of a sailing ship on the high seas.

And watching my laundry, I thought of Pablo Neruda's love for Mathilde Urrutia, for Chile, for the ocean, offered to us through his 100 Love Sonnets. And this;

Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky

like triumphant washer women, and it all

glowed in blue, all like a single star,

the sea, the ship, the day were all exiled together.

... There's nothing here but light, quantities, clusters,

space opened by the graces of the wind

till it gives up the final secret of the foam.

Among so many blues - heavenly blues, sunken blues-

our eyes are a little confused: they can hardly divine

the powers of the air, the keys to the secrets in the sea.

Friday Five: Food Writers

1. Ruth Reichl "Tender at the Bone"
I decided I wanted to visit New York watching Robert De Niro in "Falling In Love." And once I finally made it to NYC, I couldn't stop visiting! A city gets under your skin, into your blood. And of course, I made my pilgrimage to the Rizzoli Bookstore on 31 West 57th Street. Luckily I'd located it on my map beforehand, but on the morning thought it best to ask each cop for directions. They loved an English accent almost as much as I loved asking them for directions... poor fellows! And whilst Robert De Niro wasn't actually in Rizzoli's, this gem was.

                                                        "At a very early age, Ruth discovered that, "Food
could be a way of making sense of the world. If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Her deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told... a remembrance of Ruth Reichl's childhood into young adulthood, redolent with the atmosphere, good humour, and angst of a sensualist's coming-of-age."

Never was a truer word spoken. If you click on the following link, you should be taken to the first few pages of the opening chapter, The Queen of Mold. Hover the cursor over the book jacket, then from the menu offered click on "excerpt." There I stood, in Rizzoli's, in full pilgrimage mode, reading this book. When I burst out laughing a page and a half in, I knew I was taking this little bit of New York home with me. And with this book began my love affair with well written stories gathered around a cooking theme.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0767903382/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-0659995-9789633#reader-link

2. Andreas Staikos "Les Liaisons Culinaires"

Dimitris and Damocles live in the same block of flats, on the same floor. They share a love of cooking, and, it soon transpires, a lover - Nana. What follows is the story of a contest, as each sets out to conquer Nana's willing palate by outperforming his rival in the kitchen. It is a bizarre and comic duel, fought with sea-urchin salads, stuffed vine leaves and delicacies from all corners of the Aegean, to win the consummate femme fatal.

"You don't happen to have a little something for me to nibble, do you? I can't stay long, I promised my husband I'd have supper with him," she said, lying in spite of the delicious smells that by now had overwhelmed the flat. Damocles promptly sped off in the direction of the kitchen and returned with a small bowl and teaspoon.

"And Nana, her nostrils twitching lustfully and her eyes half-closed (the lids labouring under the burden of many layers of mascara), whispered, word perfect, "What is it? What is it? Corals. Sea-urchin corals, drowning in a spoonful of Aegean water.

""The recipe? Give me the recipe," demanded Damocles, prompting her next ritualised response.

""Take ten sea urchins, place them in a small bowl, mix them with two blasts of the Etesian winds and add a drop of lemon juice.""

3. Elizabeth David "Christmas"

I begin my Christmas preparations with this slim volume. That the Guardian reviewed this book thus,

"When you read Elizabeth David, you get perfect pitch. There is an understanding and evocation of flavours, colours, scents and places that lighten up the page,"

owes a lot to the skill of ED's gifted editor, Jill Norman.

4. Nigel Slater "Real Cooking"

His language is gastro-porn of the top-most-shelf variety, and my first reading of this book in Waterstones took my breath away. If you thought all we are doing is roasting off a chicken, Nigel has other ideas;

"Good housekeeping is often at odds with good eating. An overzealous hand with the clearing up, springing up from the table and throwing too much, too soon into the sink, can destroy in seconds what is so important to the intelligent cook. The glorious dripping and jelly that will enrich a sauce, the gelatinous bones, sucked or not, that will make a glowing golden broth, not to mention the crunchy, sticky bits of skin and potato stuck to the pan that are a treat for the greedy."

5. Jamie Oliver "The Naked Chef"

I watched him on the telly one night, making a salad of mixed tomatoes (p34), then radish and fennel salad (p37), then baby spinach, fresh pea and feta cheese salad (p41), and recognised this moment as a culinary epiphany; and began to make salads as Alice Walker described years before,

"my brain light; tossing this and that into the pot; seasoning none of my life the same way twice; happy to feed whoever strays my way."

Early Spring Colours2

Early Spring Colours

What a beautiful header for letters written during spring. Thank you Gardener's World website.

Cherry Blossom

Though on the sign it is written

"Don't pluck these blossoms" -

It is useless against the wind

Which cannot read.

Snowdrop Division

The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, is one of our tiniest spring bulbs. Its appearance in January fills me with delight; here comes spring. They are pretty adaptable, tough little things, but really thrive on dampish, heavy-ish clay soils. Too much sunlight makes the flowers go over fairly quickly, so they tend to last longer in flower in a shady spot. If you can recreate their ideal habitat, at a hedgerow bottom, with plenty of leaf mould, they will romp away and reward you with their prolific naturalisation.

Snowdrops increase naturally by forming offsets or bulblets from the main, parent bulb each season. Left undisturbed, snowdrops will double in quantity each year, (under ideal conditions of course.) So your investment of 100 snowdrop bulbs this spring increases thus:

year 1 = 100 bulbs

year 2 = 200 bulbs

year 3 = 400 bulbs

year 4 = 800 bulbs

year 5 = 1600 bulbs

year 6 = 3200 bulbs (just in time for the 2012 Olympics)

Not a bad investment. Left to their own devices clumps of snowdrops may become overcrowded and take longer to develop to flowering size. Especially if left in a bucket for a year... After the flowers have gone over, and when the leaves are dropping yellow at the tips, lift the clump carefully and separate the bulbs. Separate the parent bulbs from the offsets, and replant the larger bulbs individually about 2" apart. Scatter the offsets amongst the replanted clump, again about 2" apart and the same depth as the parent bulb. This level (in the parent) is indicated by the colour change between the green top-growth and the chlorotic, yellow-green leaf bases that were underground. Water well in, and lightly feed with a high-potash, low-nitrogen dressing.

Lunar Eclipse, Sir Isaac Newton and Biodynamic Gardening

Thank goodness for the recent cold snap and clear skies overnight. This meant that last night's lunar eclipse was clearly visible, from about 21.00hr to 22.30hr. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, blocking the Sun’s light. We see the Earth’s shadow creep across the surface of the Moon. Lunar eclipses are not as spectacular as Solar eclipses, when day turns to night. However, they last for much longer, and can be seen from any part of the Earth’s surface where the Moon is above the horizon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/earth/lunareclipse.shtml

Full Moons occur when the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth - so Lunar eclipses can only happen when the Moon is full. It would seem natural for a lunar eclipse to happen at each full Moon. But this isn't the case. The Moon's orbit is tilted by about 5 degrees to the path of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. During most months the Moon will pass above or below the Earth's shadow and no eclipse will occur. So last night's full moon and lunar eclipse was worth waiting for, actually it was the first lunar eclipse I've witnessed. And I fully expect corrections from my favourite NASA guy via email!

So on to biodynamic gardening. This term describes a whole system approach to organic gardening based upon the writings of Rudolf Steiner in the twenties. He believed that the world must be seen as a single organism, where everything is related. Nothing new there then, to those of us with a faith in the Creator. Steiner believed that the burgeoning developments in the chemical industries during the first quarter of the last century, and advancements made in the manufacture and widespread use of artificial fertilisers and pesticides had a detrimental effect on the quality of crops, not just because of the bio-chemical properties involved, but also due to spiritual shortcomings in the whole chemical approach to farming. Sounds familiar?

But planting by the phases of the moon? Now that is a step too far in the incredulity stakes. Or so I thought until it appeared as a project by one of the first-year RHS students, Thea Pitcher, featured in Friday night's edition of A New Year at Kew. Thea planted a vegetable patch according to the phases of the moon, which she hoped will increase productivity and plant and soil health. More on this in next week's programme.

Planting by the phases of the moon is an idea as old as agriculture, and whilst it appears to be based on superstitions best left in the ancient world, it's actually based on the scientific principles set out by the greatest scientist of all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In 1687 Newton published his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia. In Book I of the Principia he states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies.

The foundation upon which biodynamic gardening rests is that Earth is in a large gravitational field, influenced by both the Sun and Moon. The tides are highest at the time of the new and the full Moon, when Sun and Moon are lined up with Earth. Just as the Moon pulls the tides in the oceans, it also pulls upon the subtle bodies of water, causing moisture to rise in the Earth, which encourages growth. The highest amount of moisture is in the soil at this time, and seeds will absorb the most water at the time of the full Moon.

Whilst I'm not really convinced by this, I shall experiment this season in the spirit of Newton, for as Alexander Pope wrote,

"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light."

Two Orthopaedic Surgeons Reading an ECG

"I think this is the part where I cut his leg off. Just look at that P wave!"
"No, I think that's the ring from my coffee cup..."

Friday Five

I have always been easily influenced. I'm laughing now as I read that sentence, remembering school days and larking about with friends and siblings. Mind you I wasn't too much better at university. I like to think I'm infinitely less influenced by others now that I'm old enough to wear variafocals. (Question to 14-year old optician, last month: "What? Seriously? Blimey! What age do most women need variafocals?" and his reply, "About your age...") Clearly not, as this post is heavily influenced by April. She knows who she is. She's the one responsible for this!
Five things for Friday:

George Clooney pretending to be a doctor, real or not, those scrubs are just too delicious for words. Try asking him for the definition of a double blind study...

Cpl Hicks, in Alien2, the only sequel that's an improvement on the original. "It's a locator, so I always know where you are."

Horatio Caine: One-liners... "They say that roaches and duct tape will survive the end of the world"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcD0Mmyp3f4
http://missedmanners.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/the-csi-miami-drinking-game/

Kyle Reece in Terminator 1 & 2. "Come with me if you want to live." And with these simple few words Michael Biehn became the poster boy for a generation of women...

Oh my goodness, Kevin Costner AND Robert Duvall, AND dressed as cowboys in "Open Range."

Here Comes Spring

A day off today, but no lie-in. Clear, star-filled skies overnight brought frosts this morning, returning the garden to its winter appearance, and even the edges of the pond froze. The terraces and steps were white and crunchy with that delicious sparkliness that a hard frost brings. In cold weather the temperatures in rural areas are often colder than urban or more populated areas.

On calm clear nights, the air near the ground cools as heat radiates back into space until just after dawn. This results in a temperature inversion where temperatures increase with height above the ground. Air over the ground on hill and mountain sides is cooler than the air at the same altitude above the surrounding valley. This causes the cold dense air to flow down the hill side to the valley floor (cold air drainage) resulting in a katabatic wind. Katabatic winds are generally light, and often blow unnoticed. However, some areas in the world see katabatic winds of incredible velocities. Outflowing winds in Antarctica can reach speeds of 120mph.

As a result of katabatic winds, temperatures in valleys and low lying areas can be significantly lower than on the surrounding higher ground. They can be low enough for ground frost to form while the surrounding hill sides remain frost free, or for frost to be more severe than in nearby areas at higher altitude. These frost prone areas are known as frost hollows. This effect can be enhanced when the cold air drainage is obstructed by obstacles such as hedges or railway embankments. Temperature differences can be as much as 8°C between a valley bottom and land at 200m (700ft). Ground frost can form even when air temperatures (which are measured in Stevenson Screens 1.2m above the ground) are as high as 4°C.

Large temperature ranges can also be recorded in frost hollows. Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire a very well know frost hollow, recorded the largest daily temperature range in England when, on 29th August 1936, the temperature climbed from 1.1°C at dawn to 24.9°C within 9 hours! Other well-known frost hollows in the UK are the Welsh Marches, the Glens of Scotland, the Pennine Valleys, the Vale of Evesham, Shrewsbury and Redhill. Frosts are often seen here earlier in the autumn and later in the spring than on the surrounding higher land.

http://www.crocus.co.uk/whatsgoingon/article/?ID=410

After breakfast we drove across to the orthodontist, then to Sainsburys for brufen and a bottle of mineral water, then up to school for just after nine. And all the time the blue, blue skies were calling to us to abandon our day and stay out in the sunshine and play. Even the girl at the checkout hoped the weather would hold until the end of her shift.

Driving home over the mountains, I called in at the farm and bought a bag of potatoes. All week I've been thinking of baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes. I've driven past this farm for nearly a decade on the school run, and each spring the snowdrops appear, lining the dry stone walls that mark out Derbyshire as the most beautiful county in England. Potatoes bought and stowed in the boot, I told the farmer this, and we realised our children are at the same school. Rather cheekily I asked if I could buy a clump of his snowdrops, to bring home to my garden a permanent reminder of the school run. And here they are, a permanent reminder of clear blue skies; of overnight frosts; of the absolute joy of children and parenthood; and the relentless passage of time, as winter makes way for spring, and the new year is underway.