May 25th (Sunday of the Whitsun bank holiday weekend). Very windy and pouring rain! 17C.This week's harvest: 5 Tom Thumb lettuces, 5 pickings of rocket, two pickings of perpetual spinach. mint, marjoram, parsley and dill.
After a sunny week last night the wind got up and the rain arrived as forecast. This photograph of the Olearia in full bloom was taken a week or so back. It is in the border of our patio area and out of the corner of your eye looks almost as though it is covered in snow!
The weather has been good for gardening and I haven't been indoors at the computer. The vegetable garden has been coming together. The slug nematodes appear to be working and I have a good showing of beans (runners and french beans) now about four inches tall. This weather will help them on too. They are on the perimeter or the giant Crimson King Acer at the bottom of the garden but it doesn't shade them until mid afternoon.
We have moved the greenhouse and taken down the old plum tree that had been decimated (and more) by silver leaf. I have also cut back the ivy from the shed where the mature stems were a good couple of feet above the roof line. If it wasn't pouring with rain I'd go out and take a photograph of it! The upshot of all this work - and the laying of a path which is topped with the wood chippings from the huge Hawthorn we took down a month or two back - is that we have increased the viable veg growing land by about 4 square metres.
I have planted out five courgette plants (two Gold Rush - one of my favourites) and three of a new variety to me which is described as having a neat habit called Verde di Milano. I have also planted a couple of Butternut squash plants next to the south facing wall behind them with the plan to train these up the wall.
Between the courgettes I have planted out half a dozen sweetcorn plants. This was a tip I was given a couple of years back and (last time I had a successful veg growing year - ie not last year!) this worked really well because the sweetcorn plants grow taller than the courgette leaves which shelter the ground retain the water at their roots. As I have so few sweetcorn plants I have planted them in a circle - the advice is always to plant sweetcorn in a block for pollination purposes - but I'm hoping my circle will work OK.
I planted a couple of short rows of Perpetual Spinach from the remains of an old packet of seed (probably three or four years old) not expecting much but there are a good dozen plants coming through. I have also a row of true spinach (from new seed) and yesterday planted a short row of Rhubarb Chard.
The Rhubarb Chard is from a packet of free seeds which are part of a trial from www.rivercottage.co.uk/ - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's business that has grown off the back of his television programmes. I decided to invest in membership which allows me to access his online tutorials. It's a great website and uses video really well - it is relevant and informative and I'm interested in the way people are developing their use of audio and video on the web as at Podcats I am always looking at new ways to use audio and video for my clients.
River Cottage also sent Marina di Chioggia squash (which I have sown in a pot for later transplanting - although given this rain I may put the other seeds directly in the ground. ) Plus French Bean (climbing) Blauhilde - although given the successful germination of my other beans (including some Borlotti seeds that I have yet to plant out) I've run out of space for beans this year.
The lettuces (Tom Thumb) that I sowed in the greenhouse back in February and planted out in late March have been doing really well and we've been eating about one a day for a couple of weeks. The Rocket that I mentioned on an early blog at the beginning of the year as having overwintered from a late sowing is also doing us proud. We have been eating a good handful (probably half a bag of supermarket rocket) every day too.
We have also been having regular pickings (once a week for several weeks) from a row of Perpetual Spinach that managed to make it through the slug fest last year. It is now going to seed and I am taking each plant out as we use it and putting the inedible bits on the compost heap.
All in all we have had more out of the garden this year so far than we had in the whole of last year. Slug nematodes get the big thumbs up from me! And just to remind me what the garden looked like before the rain set in - this photograph of the Weigela was taken a week or so ago. Today it looks bedraggled and the flowers are just going over.
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