It's supposed to be late Autumn... isn't it?

The weather last year had me a little concerned.  Our winter was rather mild - not that I'm complaining about that - I was worried when I started seeing things I associate with the first stirrings of Spring in early July.

There is an old English/modern Pagan festival called Imbolg.  Sometimes translated as "Ewe's Milk".  This is February 2nd (approx) in the Northern Hemisphere and August 2nd down here.  The festival is supposed to mark the first stirrings of Spring, not the full arrival of Spring.  Over the years I've seen various things work as markers for this - leaf buds appearing on fruit trees, spring bulbs poking their leaves up out of the soil and things like that.  Lambing (as is evident from the name) was once a marker, but as breeding is fairly well controlled by the farmers these days, it's not necessarily an accurate one anymore.

Most of these "markers" as I've called them, I normally start seeing and noticing in early August.  I may not feel much of a change in the air temperature, but the plants are noticing something.  Last year, I realised that most of these markers were occurring very early in July.  My big oak tree had old yellow and brown leaves that hadn't yet fallen and new green ones opening on the same branches.  I was afraid to prune my nectarine tree as it never quite made it to 'dying back for the winter' and I worried that cutting branches would cause it to bleed to death.

New growth on my potatoes

This year, it's even weirder.  It's almost as though the clock turned back after mid-Summer and we're having a second Spring.  My paddocks are still growing with that Spring flush type growth and speed of growth.  The lawn still requires mowing pretty much every week.  My tomatoes are still flowering and fruiting - although they're ripening a lot slower lately.  My potatoes are throwing up new plants and each decent sized spud I dig up has up to ten baby spuds hanging off it.  My pumpkins did nothing all Summer.  We were undecided whether we weren't watering enough, the soil (well, it was 90% pig poo) was too rich, or the distinct lack of bees was the problem.  Now, however, I suddenly have a heap of small (just bigger than apple sized) pumpkins that have appeared on the plants and the runners are finally doing their bolt across the paddock.  A neighbour has commented that her apple trees have started flowering again.

New Pumpkins growing

We've had 20 degrees Celsius this week.  Trying to find information on what the averages are historically has been interesting.  One website suggests the average high temperature throughout March, April and May in Christchurch (because Amberley is too small to count) is 18°C, another gives the May average around Christchurch at 8.9°C.  Niwa's website, based on 30 years of record keeping puts it at 14.7°C.

As I realised last year, there's not a lot we can do to change the weather right now.  I can't do anything about this new growth that will probably all be killed in a heavy frost next month.  All I can do is prepare for what may be coming and try to save what I can.

I'm not sorry that it seems we won't need any hay this year.  We still have plenty of feed around the place and with three cattle beasties going in the space of a week, we have a lot less demand for the feed we do have.