With Christmas and new year out of the way and the shortest day behind us it is time to start thinking again about the allotment and getting ready for spring. One of the first jobs I like to do is when the ground is not frozen, get my cloches out, cleaned up and erected.
I will not plant anything in the cloche just yet as it is still too early, buy I like to get it out early for two reasons, firstly at this time of year there is not much else to do, so getting a job out of the way before all the jobs start to pile up in spring and secondly, getting the cloche out early means that it can be warming the ground up, it really does make a difference, even if it is just warming that patch of ground by one or two degrees above the surrounding soil, it really is worth it. When planted in the warmer ground seeds will germinate earlier and come on stronger than if they were planted in cold ground and had the cloche stuck over them after sowing.
Tags: cloche