Stevenson screen

For those of you in the know it may not look like it (and if you're not in the know just ignore the first part of this sentence), but this is a Stevenson screen (click to enlarge). My thermometer readings were looking far too high compared to the 30 year average... either that or we're on our way to having a fantastic summer.

But during a chat with Richard as he was passing it looked like I was getting radiated heat from the greenhouse affecting my maximum/minimum readings, since the sensor housing (an upturned plant pot) was against the greenhouse glass. So now plan B... a white upturned yoghurt pot on a pole four feet high, being the recommended height. I'll try this for a week or so.

Getting decent readings is turning out to be a lot more complicated than I'd imagined, but I'm hoping that once things are working well I'll have some advance warning of what type of summer it's going to be, and how early I can plant things out. See the chart for the last few weeks' temperatures at the foot of this posting. Believe it or not there is a plan C if I have to give up on my natural Scottish inclination to do all things at minimum cost.

Lots of seedlings popping up this week, pictures for some shown below. On the veg front there have been broadbeans, peas and leeks showing in the greenhouse, and most exciting of all (since this is the first year I'll get to eat them) the asparagus bed is showing its first shoots. For flowers there's been first appearances for tuberous dahlia and begonia shoots, anemones, lobelias, stocks, marigolds, cosmos, and ranunculus.

Had to make modifications to last week's Geoff Hamilton cloche. The support piping had almost collapsed 'cause I'd ended up with it too short, so cut some new supports and it's looking a lot better as can be seen. There's a picture below of the constituent parts.

The chickens made their return back to normal egg production of three or four a day with perfect timing. It was Izzy's third birthday on Tuesday and Becky needed 106 eggs (well, maybe not, but it seemed like I delivered something like that) for the various party and playschool cakes. And what a birthday cake she made... huge, full of chocolate and moist! Got paid the greatest compliment possible by resident expert Connor (aged 6) when, as his eyes popped out of his head, he described it as the best cake ever.

	The last couple of weeks temperature readings. Includes the 30 year average for soil readings to a 10cm depth.(click to enlarge)
	Parts to make the Geoff Hamilton cloche.
	The first asparagus shoot!
	First appearance for leeks. I'm still harvesting last year's crop... think leeks are my favourite vegetable.
	Maybe at last I'll be successful with peas.
	The girls are a bit thirsty... although there was plenty of water the previous day they'd run out on this visit.
	Trying to educate the feathered fiends with some Radio 3. Now using the Roberts fm radio after the on/off button on the digital version packed up. Bit poor for a £90 radio, hence the reason my last and best radio purchase was from Pure.