Wednesday 25 November 2015

The PSB thermometer

I often joke about this, but I really can judge the temperature outside from my armchair. Looking out through the glass doors I can see the Purple Sprouting Broccoli plants, and the position of their leaves gives me a good indication of the temperature.

If they are upright like this, the air is relatively warm:


Whereas if they are drooping downwards like this, it is cold - below freezing temperature!


When the leaves droop, the flower-head remains upright and is therefore much more visible.


This one is "Rudolph", and you can see that it won't be long before I can pick some spears from it.


The central flower-head of "Red Spear" has yet to form, but the side-shoots are getting bigger very rapidly.



OK, here's a test for you: what temperature is it in the photo below?


And here?


You probably guessed, we got our first frost of the year at the weekend. I would say it's about a month later than usual.

9 comments:

  1. We had our first frost at the weekend too. Time to pull some parsnips, if only I had some to pull. The psb is looking good.

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  2. Jo's comment has just reminded me to go and take a look at the parsnips. Now that you have invented the PSB thermometer, is there any chance of getting the celeriac to pick the winning lottery numbers?

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    1. No chance! I don't think my Celeriac even knows what time of year it is - or perhaps it's just that it hasn't grown up yet...

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  3. Gosh your PSB is magnificent, mine is still very small & yes they do make ideal weather indicators!

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  4. That's so interesting and quite humorous! It looks like you will be getting a lot of side shoots from Red Spear - I enjoyed the side shoots from my regular broccoli plants even more than the main heads as they were always surprising me (in a good way!)

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  5. Ha ha! I love your PSB thermometer!
    I pulled up my PSBs by mistake, not realising it would take so much longer to come to flower... it was lolling around, like a lanky teenager, untidy and all over the other veg, and didn't look like it would come to anything. Just goes to show that 'teenagers' do... eventually!

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    Replies
    1. Yes, and they need a bit of Mothering at frequent intervals!

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  6. Have we got a second Mr Foggitt.

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  7. Foggitt was a very apt name for an amateur weather-forecaster! I note that he was a Yorkshireman.

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