Again a mixed weather month, likely a new norm in the face of climate change. The first week was storms and hail (which filled up my water butts), this past week 35C and no rain for the foreseeable future. This coming week will stay mid 20s before the heat is forecast to hit again.
This month the plot has provided strawberries, currants, raspberries, fava beans (both broad beans and field beans), radishes, lettuce, rocket, lots of herbs, sweet peas, dahlias, cornflowers, snapdragons, oxeye daisy, dill flowers and counting. Just dug up my first lot of first earlies (Lady Christl) at the weekend.
It’s been difficult to keep young plants going in pots and balancing when to plant out to avoid stressing plants. This month I eventually planted out greenhouse tomatoes (outdoor late May), French marigolds, sweetcorn, grain amaranth, celeriac, beetroot, dwarf beans, basil, flat leaf parsley, cucumbers, freebie onion sets, more radish seeds, more dill seeds, more nasturtium seeds, annual asters, African marigolds, and seeds for coriander including a bolt-resistant leafy variety and a seed variety.
Over the weekend I also planted seeds for sweet william cut flowers for next year and the first set of brassicas for winter / spring.
I started digging a new 5x5m bed at the end of May and this is now mostly finished. I just have one strip on the last side about 80cm by 2m that still needs digging and then I can edge that last side. I found the previous neighbours had buried “weed suppressing” black fabric under now-well-rotted wood chippings. So that’s been very hard going to remove and has made the progress slower.
Climbing beans were slow to grow up their frames but are happily climbing and with some flowers now. My first lot of dwarf beans are also thriving and now have beans forming. All tomato plants are flowering with bush cherry tomatoes in grow bags now with lots of green tomatoes. Courgette (one plant) has flowers and small fruit.
I planted out my young statice and strawflower plants at the end of May… at this point all the strawflowers are dead, regular statice are trying their best to hang on, and the Russian poker statice mostly died but I have a few really unhealthy looking ones in pots. Strawflowers and statice were extremely easy to grow last year so I over estimated their resilience this year. I planted them too early due to juggling commitments but the weather didn’t help their survival either.
I only ended up with three annual aster plants and one died in the heatwave last week even though it had plenty of leaves and was being watered everyday. As I’m typing this I’m thinking maybe I need to check for wireworms or other pests in the soil, but probably was just bad luck.
I’ve made my peace with the things that have not worked. Pollinators as well as plants get messed around with volatile weather. I had some large strawberries at first but the rest have been small and few and far between even with watering and feeding.
It’s been a physically demanding year so far at the plot making new beds and other landscaping jobs. But hopefully I’m close to having a permanent layout for things and the space just needs maintenance going forward (at least for awhile). I’m proud of myself for balancing the physical graft with plant nurturing, it’s a tough juggling act requiring close time management made even trickier with the unpredictable weather.
This month I did very little note taking on when I did various jobs, even my photos that I use for reference have been slim pickings. So I won’t be doing an itemised list this month.
Bonus task. My water lily I planted in spring has been propped up in the pond to allow it the best chance to grow leaves and gain energy. Yesterday I sunk the lily to its final position at the lowest point in the pond. By the time I left the plot its leaves had made their way to reach just under the water surface and seems happy.
