What's the temperature where you are???

[5Australorpasaures]

75 F sunny and breezy. B YOU TEE FULL! Just came in from coffee break.

 

[Ponypoor]

Well, I live in a relatively cold region, and my house is located on the northern side of a large hill, but usually spring at this time looks a little more convincing and warmer than now.
Today the temperature is above zero, but somewhere around +4 C, although there is no reason to complain about the lack of precipitation - today it has been raining for half a day.
I do not plant potatoes like a farmer, my scale is much more modest, usually just a few long beds. As soon as the potatoes bloom and green berries appear on the bushes (berries are not for food, it are poisonous), I slowly begin to dig the potatoes up, wash them and boil them with the skin in a large saucepan, taking some for myself for lunch, and giving the rest, cut or mashed, to the ducks. I don’t know why, but my ducks really like boiled potatoes. Since there is no need to use pesticides here (large potato fields that can be affected by the Colorado potato beetle are located far away, and for some reason this beetle is not here at all, or it appears in a single specimen and for some reason it does not like it here, it does not reproduce, maybe the soil is too heavy and clayey, maybe there is too much manure, or maybe it is cold for it), in general, all the work on potatoes comes down to digging the soil, planting and covering a little later with some old rotten hay, soiled with old manure. Adding wood ash, old eggshells after incubation, sometimes some sand (to dilute the heavy clay soil, slightly acidic).

But I don't risk giving the ducks store-bought potatoes - they may contain pesticide residues, which is very dangerous for ducks. And you also need to watch carefully so that there are no very green tubers that have been lying in the sun, they contain the poison solanine.

In general, I just dig up good potatoes, boil them and feed them to the ducks. Although other poultry farmers here claim that you can't get too carried away with this, ducks can get fat if they eat too many boiled potatoes.

We grew potatoes before but it’s far easier to go and pick over the fields once they finish the harvest. They only take potatoes of a certain size and the rest fall through. So I go and pick them up.

Tomorrow I will plant my tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli and Brussel sprout plants I bought. And I will also plant the seeds for pole beans, snap peas and more lettuce. It’s still a wee bit early for tomato plants but I can cover them up at night to protect from frost. Which we will likely get tonight.

It’s has not been a great Spring here this year, it’s been cool and gloomy.

 

[Ponypoor]

Today there was a high of 20C, then a north wind kicked up and the temps dropped fast, it is now 12C but feels much cooler due to that miserable wind. I hate wind, not as much as snow, but it just makes things so hard to do.

Tomorrow looks sunny but cool again at 19C. It’s not snow so I’ll take it.

Next weekend is not looking promising, it’s our May 2 4, long weekend, supposedly our ‘unofficial’ start to ‘summer’. I have seen it freezing rain before so I guess rain is better than that!