Spring blows in wonderful winds of change

THE weather was colder than normal for much of April. I was preparing beds in my vegetable garden in the chilly midlands and when my hands were in contact with the soil for about 20 minutes they went numb. I didn’t need a thermometer to tell me that it was too soon to start sowing things.

Then a couple of weeks ago everything suddenly changed. The winds that had been blowing from between east and north switched to the quadrant between west and south and the soil started to warm up. Soil temperature in the spring always lags behind air temperature for reasons that have to do with the laws of thermodynamics. But sometimes it can catch up quite rapidly. Warm rain can heat cold, dry soil in the space of a few days.

What happens then, of course, is that instead of sowing turnip seed and setting out cabbage plants I spend the day cursing and trying to start a lawnmower that’s been idle since autumn.