Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Since we started summer (solstice on the longest day of 21st of December, last year) we’ve basically “turned the corner”. The “longest day” was not really the longest day here in Christchurch (but a few days later), but the point is that from now on our days are getting shorter – very slowly. Once we get to mid-to-late February the shortening will speed up and reach its fastest downhill trend of the year… This website shows that in nice little, interactive graphs – I love that stuff! Why bring this topic up on this radio segment? Well…nature responds quite rapidly and accurately to these changes in daylight length and especially gardeners see the effects every year. Plants are pretty good at “working” with their day-length conditions: In spring, when days get longer and soil warms up (the sun gets higher in the sky too, warming up the soil more efficiently due to the higher angle of solar radiation) most plants “wake up” from winter. Roughly: plants start to notice that around late August, early September Gro