Proper Job!

That's what the Cornish like to say about a job or something well done!  Well, we got a proper snowfall! Big, feathery, silently falling flakes that settled beautifully on the plants! The wind could be seen by the way some patches were blown sideways as they fell. Totally mesmerizing and beautiful. I began to think it would be a walk to the allotment to put the hens to bed. Sadly this wonderful snowfall came to nothing. Once again our little village in the valley was not a place the snow wanted to linger - it was just passing through to dump copious amounts everywhere else!
We seem to have our own very different climate:-

The Tamar Valley is protected from the northeast winds, it has a good rainfall and in summer the southern slopes warm up rapidly reaching a steady temperature of 70°f. This made the valley an ideal place in which to grow fruit and flowers. Calstock’s ideal south-facing location made this area an early producer.

 The Tamar Valley and in particular  Calstock grew strawberries, raspberries, apples, and walnuts, and from the 1880's also anemones, daffodils and iris. All sent around the country including Covent garden in London! Our allotment field was used to grow raspberries, which is why I'm constantly digging he pesky things out of my plot! The allotment is also very stony and has lots of pieces of china in it. This is because of the use of "Dock Dung" to fertilise the soil:- 

‘Dock Dung’ was an evil-smelling compound of the sweepings of the Plymouth Streets, fish waste, butchers offal and night soil which was accumulated daily in a huge heap at Pottery Quay, Devonport. Often the dung contained bits of china and this can still be seen in the soil today.




I love the bits of china and glass I dig up, and of course, the lovely fruit, flowers, and veg  I grow, I guess I can't have the snow as well!