So! This winter has been just about the wettest winter ever recorded but in theory, we are now into spring! Last week, I was in Holbeach looking at soil conditions with some farmers, and the sleet was horizontal (and it is May now) and after a couple of hours, I was able to get back into a warm van but had much sympathy with the gang of people harvesting leeks by hand in the next-door field. The crop was being irrigated to make the soil moist to allow them to pull the leeks so please appreciate the veg we buy in supermarkets.

Lawn wise, it has been wet, dull and cold. This means we are behind where we would like to be both in enjoying the garden and in the growth of just about everything.

The dull wet weather has meant that we have seen much more moss than we have in the last few years. This is simply due to the lack of light, in simple biology, plants need light to photosynthesize (taking in carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and oxygen) to create carbohydrates and we cannot artificially provide these. As the plants catch the light through their leaves, if the leaves are too short, there is less area of leaf for the plants to catch light, therefore, the shorter we cut the plants in the autumn, the more chance you have of having an unhealthy lawn and by default, more moss which is happy to take over when the grass plants are struggling. Hence, we see this in more shady areas where the winter sun is shaded.

We have been targeting moss in the recent months so the remaining amounts should be diminishing.

On the very positive side, we will be looking forward to dealing with weeds. The selective herbicides we use rely on the weeds to be growing well for them to work properly, hence we don’t use them until the day and night temperatures are warm enough (which clearly has not been the case in recent weeks) which tends to be around the first week of May so all the kit is being serviced and will be ready to go as soon as the temperatures are warm enough.

Nutrition wise, we are currently looking at the soil situation so that we can make sure we apply the right nutrition going forwards. Much of the macro nutrition elements applied so far this spring will not have had much affect as yet as the soil temperatures being so cold mean that all the micro fauna will not be working properly. These need warmth, moisture and air, and to be fair, in the recent weeks they have had only cold moisture! Without all the microorganisms in the soil functioning well, the fertilisers we apply cannot be used by plants so once things start to warm up, you will see a big boost in the way the plants behave, and they will romp away.

Any queries on the above, please contact us