Life on The Weald - February 2026
- and in the rain!
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| 1 February - Meteor Peas |
Sunday 1 - Tuesday 3 February
First, the good news! The Meteor Peas, sown indoors a week earlier (25 January) had all germinated.
Figures from the Met Office confirmed that it had been one of the wettest Januarys in the south of England since records began with rainfall 88% above the average level for the month.
February has started as January ended, with continuing wet weather. We had planned a cinema visit on Tuesday but there was an absolute downpour and sitting in damp clothes for a couple of hours did not seem an attractive proposition!
Wednesday 4 February
The rain held off and there were blue skies. I walked down by the Lagoon to deliver my membership application for the Deep Sea Anglers Club. No, I'm not about to take up angling! They allow "social" members as well as anglers, and they have a very nice clubroom/bar with good food and a terrace on to the beach - and it is on my doorstep. Unfortunately they have a long waiting list, so it could be 6 months or up to a year before my membership application is even considered.
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| 4 February - Hove Lagoon |
Although it was very wet underfoot, I ventured to the plot in the afternoon and, despite the heavy mud,tackled some of the grass that was encroaching on our walk-in fruit cage. It was heavy work, but I made some progress.
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| 4 February - removing grass, the task ahead |
It didn't help that the grass had become enmeshed with the netting and was spreading into the fruit cage. I refer to it as a fruit cage but it isn't housing any fruit, but is protecting the broccoli from the pigeons.
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| 4 February - slow progress |
After an hour or so it was time for a rest
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| 4 February - a small improvement |
There is still more to do but there has been a small improvement.
Over the next few days there was yet more rain and much of the site is very waterlogged with deep puddles on the haulageways.
Monday 9 February
Thankfully there was a break in the rain and I spent the whole morning removing bindweed from around the redcurrants. It will not be possible to remove all of it without digging up and replanting the redcurrant bushes.
Having weeded around one of the bushes, I laid a deep mulch of wood chippings and leaves. on a later of cardboard.
Heavy rain returned the following day!
Wednesday 11 February
I continued weeding the redcurrant bed and removing dead branches from the second bush. Some of it was so decayed that I decided to dig up the bush and split the root. I replanted one of the stems which had roots and put the others in a bucket of water intending to pot them up in due course, either to replant or give away (if they survive).
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| 11 February - Redcurrants and mulch |
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| 11 February - Redcurrants and mulch |
Saturday 14 February
The allotment association had received a number of complaints from plot holders about the muddy entrance at the western gate.
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| 1 February - western entrance to The Weald |
With all the recent rain, this is a common problem across the City's allotments and it is clear that the Council does not have the resources to deal with it - so we put together a volunteer team. Greater love hath no man (or woman) than this, that they spend Valentine’s Day filling potholes for their fellow allotment plot holders.
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| 14 February - the western gate |
There was a similar problem by the pedestrian gate to our building which is used by customers for our Community Food Project. With the help of a couple of volunteers we dug out some of the mud and filled the void with ballast and gravel
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| 14 February - pedestrian entrance to the Food Project |
In the garden, at home, the purple Hellebores were flowering for Valentine's Day. The white ones are just coming into bud.
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| 14 February - Valentine's Day Hellebores |
Sunday 15 February
The Quince tree in our garden, which had borne so much fruit last year, is growing very fast. There are three main branches from the central trunk, two of which are about 2 - 2.5m high and one, with a further branch is about 4m. I want to maintain a maximum height for the tree at about 2.5 - 3m so I consulted a friend on the allotment, Simon, who knows about these things. Yes it is the right time of year to prune and he kindly showed me where to cut back the branches.
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| 15 February - Quince tree with Simion's suggested cuts |
Although the rain had held off, it was getting rather cold, so I put off pruning for another day
Monday 16 February
Despite the threat of rain I went to the plot briefly and, perhaps foolishly, planted out the Meteor peas that I had sown at home. I managed to get them planted before the rain came down!
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| 16 February - Meteor Peas |
Under the fleece there was no sign of any growth of the peas which I had directly sown a few weeks earlier. I suspect they have either rotted in the wet ground or been eaten by rodents.
Tuesday 17 - Monday 23 February
A combination of appointments, visitors and yet more rain kept me away from the plot for most of the week but we ventured there on Thursday to feed the worms in the wormeries, as we had accumulated quite a lot of kitchen food waste and to repot and replant the irises from the pond. I had removed them from their pots, having to cut off the roots which had grown through, to get them out. I needed to remove all the soil and get down to the bare rhizomes to ensure any couch grass had been removed. It was fairly brutal treatment but I am hoping, with fresh specialist aquatic soil, that they will survive.
Tuesday 24 / Wednesday 25 February
Tuesday was a glorious, spring-like day with sunshine and a clear blue sky and ideal for gardening but, unfortunately, I had a dental appointment in the morning and a meeting in the afternoon and wasn't able to get to the plot. Wednesday was dry in the morning but getting colder. I decided it was time to weed the Winter Red onions, which had become overgrown with weeds, mostly goose grass (also known as "sticky willy" or "cleavers" ) which I was able to pull away by hand.
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| 25 February - a pile of goose grass for the compost heap |
Goose grass is edible, with a slight taste of spinach, but we have no shortage of spinach beet and chard so the goose grass was destined for the compost bin. It will grow back, however, unless the roots are removed. There were other annual weeds as well so I hoed around all the onions with an onion hoe and tried to remove as many roots as possible. The bed certainly looked better for my efforts and I must try to keep the weeds under control in future if I want decent sized onions.
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| 25 February - Winter Red onions |
Saturday 28 February
Saturday was cold and damp, but we managed to get quite a lot done in the morning. We had help from Luke, who delivered a record six barrowloads of manure, some of which went directly on to beds on top of a layer of cardboard and the remainder in piles on cardboard, ready to be spread at a later date. Sylvi spent the morning cutting back brambles and thinning the raspberry canes and I tried to remove bindweed roots and raspberry suckers from the small bed close (with hindsight perhaps too close) to the raspberries. The Jostaberry that I had been given by a neighbour, which I had planted in a large pot, appeared to be doing well, as did the winter savory and the French tarragon which had over-wintered in an old wheelbarrow which is being used as a herb garden. Both were just coming into leaf.
I removed the fleece from the Red Karmen red onions and Biztro shallots that had recently been planted as shoots were beginning to show.
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| 28 February - red onions |
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| 28 February - peas germinating |
I removed the flowerpots with which I had covered the rhubarb in order to force it, and we picked our first rhubarb of the year.
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| 28 February - forced rhubarb |
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| 28 February - rhubarb harvest |
To end the month on a good spring-like note, there was a cluster of frog spawn in the pond and the daffodils were in flower ready for tomorrow's St David's Day and the first day of meteorological spring 😊😊😊
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| 28 February - Frog Spawn |
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