Well, March came in like a lamb with several sunny still days, and it certainly went out like a lion. Gales blew, and driving rain and hail made field work impossible. For 10 days we could not turn a wheel. Potato planting, spraying, ploughing and drilling spring barley and fertilising all had to stop. The fleece we use to cover our ‘first earlies’ (potatoes), withstood the gales quite well, with only a little bit blown off and ripped. Thanks to Richard and George for making such a good job of putting it on. The old saying ‘March Many Weather ‘was never more true.
Our snowdrops were out in January this year, quickly followed by crocus and the daffodils. It is not Spring until the daffs are out, but they certainly took a battering in the driving winds. The final Spring bulb, the Tulip, is now in bud and should be a fantastic show when you read this article.
Priority Service Register (PSR)
Autumn came in September and it really was the “Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness”. Ideal growing weather has meant massive crops of fruits: apples, pears, plums and damsons. While huge bunches of blackberries hung in the hedgerows. We have gathered lots of sloes from the blackthorn plant to put in our slow gin for Christmas. Very good it is too - hic!
When the frustrating wet and soggy August ended, September brought an Indian Summer: glorious sunny days meant harvest could resume and was finally completed on 10th September. The wheat and barley was cut dry enough to store without drying. Yields have been OK but not much better than average. Potato yields have been very good due to ideal growing conditions: rain and hot sun, then more rain. But big yields mean low prices. Prices for all farm products have crashed this year for various reasons. There has been a huge harvest in the USA, record yields of soya, maize (corn) and wheat have driven down prices, and ironically, after the huge success of fracking, there is a surplus of gas in the USA, so the millions of tons of maize and wheat that went into ethanol production and bio-diesel for fuel, is now on the market depressing prices. There have been good harvests in all the main wheat producing areas of the world, Australia, Argentina and Russia/Ukraine. Russia has been a strong seller of wheat out of Ukraine. Black sea wheat, as it is called, is always priced to sell, meaning it is always the cheapest, so pulls down the price.
Frodsham Independent Market Saturday 4 April 10am - 3pm Parish Hall, Church St
Kirstie of Yurei Boutiques has been busy organising a new monthly market that will take place on the first Saturday of each month, 10am - 3pm at the Parish Hall on Church St. This is a new market set up to provide a very affordable way for local, small creative businesses to connect with the community. For more information visit the Frodsham Independent Market Facebook Page. Hope to see you on 4th April!
Kate Dodgson Frodsham Foundation |
The old village web site has been looking "tired" for quite a while now and I have been working on a replacement in my (not so) spare time. Unfortunately the server that the old site runs on is also very "tired" and has recently suffered a bit of a set-back, the result being that it is now on a newer server with much more up to date software - so up to date that the old site doesn't work! I've taken this as the metaphorical boot up the backside required to get moving with the new version.
Embarrassingly it is nowhere near ready so I'm being forced to let it live in a very much developmental stage. Please bear with me as it gets further developed, improved and generally tweaked until it is somewhere near ready.
Apologies to those who use the site regularly but if you use Facebook then please join the very popular village page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/42752203739/ for up to date news and discussions.
Please rest assured that I am moving data across as quickly as I can as well as working on the functionality of the site to make it more usable and easier on the eye. For instance, this version works much better on a phone and tablet than the old one, but still has a way to go in all formats!
Thanks,
Simon Sherlock
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