Wednesday, 1 June 2016

That was May!

It's JUNE! - not flaming June as today has dawned cold and wet. Whatever happened to May?

Well, we actually had some lovely spring - even summery - weather during May, which meant we could get out and DO STUFF in the garden. Quite a lot of digging over of vegetable plots that were neglected after  last year's crops were harvested, clearing some horrible ground-elder that is marching above and under ground from the neighbouring field, tending various seedlings sown in the greenhouse, re-potting 40 brussel sprouts and 60 Ailsa Craig onions from the seed tray into little pots......as well as cutting the grass (which with the wet and warm weather is growing like crazy), trimming bushes, hedges and so on. It's been really busy - hence a dearth of blogs.

Last weekend was a bank holiday and we had son Paul staying. We were all out in the garden for 4 full days and achieved miracles.

Planted out the rest of the squashes (6 Sprinters - kind of butternut). Already have 7 marrows, 5 Winter-fest squashes, 2 Turks Turban squashes growing outdoors.

Put out the French beans with their bamboo wigwams (Paul says they're teepees, wigwams being something entirely different!). I've always planted Blue Lake, but the last few years only about 50% of beans have germinated, both saved and bought-in seeds, so I've tried a different variety - Cobra. They nearly all germinated and are looking pretty good out there.

A new venture - Sweetcorn. We sowed these in the conservatory for warmth and on Saturday planted 18 about 12" tall in the raised bed.  The bed is a bit close to the hedge and so worried about rabbits and of course pigeons and pheasants who are greedy and eat everything. So we used out some poles, connectors and netting to make a cage to keep them safe until they get bigger. Mind you, it's also right by the hazel tree which attracts squirrels in the autumn. We'll have to keep a look out for robbers!

We also slung netting over the redcurrants which last year got completely devastated by birds.

Last autumn we acquired 30m of hedging courtesy of a tree scheme from the council to patch up some of the hedge between our garden and the field. But with Mum going and then with such wet, wet weather over the winter we hadn't put them in. Mostly hawthorn and some hazels, they were all wrapped up in bundles by the wood shed and beginning to look a bit sorry.So Chas spent most of Bank Holiday Monday transplanting them into pots where hopefully they will recover and thrive until we can get them to their proper positions.

Here's the walnut trees now with leaves. Also showing the raised bed and cage
with the Sweetcorn and tops of the French bean wigwams.



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