What a turn around we’ve had in the weather this month! The arctic winds have subsided and for the last couple of weeks it’s been like summer. Plus a few times in the last week we’ve had rainfall at night followed by a sunny day, which has done wonders for our plants. We’ve been very busy this month in our garden and at the allotment, although we’re still behind schedule. We’ve also started harvesting, with our overwintered broad beans now yielding returns.
It’s been another month where we’ve struggled to find time to get the jobs done that we wanted to. Other commitments have eaten up our weekends, and so the garden and allotment have suffered. But we’ve made a lot of progress. The patch in the garden that we often refer to as ‘the pumpkin patch’ already had our Martock Field Beans growing in it, and to that this month we have added some Boddington’s Soup Peas and some pea beans.
Martock field beans growing in our garden.
The soup peas had long been overdue to be planted out. We started them in pots, but having not prepared the space to grow them in, or anything for them to climb up, we left them in their pots and some of them had started to become leggy, tangled messes. But they are out now and most are looking rather happy. A couple of the pea beans had started to get rather leggy too, but these look happier now they are in the ground.
Next out into the patch should be runner beans and dwarf French beans. But we haven’t yet sowed the French beans, and we have very few runner bean plants to go out. The legumes patch at the allotment is currently bare apart from the broad beans, so the few runner beans plants we have germinated at the moment will probably go there and the next batch will go into the garden. We also have some garden peas in pots for the allotment, which could really do with being planted out as soon as possible.
There is some good news at the allotment though – the roots bed is looking rather happy. We’ve got carrots and parsnips germinated. In fact some of the parsnips are looking very happy indeed. My dad started a few off for us in paper pots, and these ones have grown rapidly. Our first early potatoes have now been earthed up and are looking very healthy. Our garlic and onions are also growing nicely. Unfortunately we lost a few onions when the kids trampled on them whilst helping with the weeding, but we’ve still got plenty.
Some healthy looking parsnips and carrots growing at the allotment under fleece to keep the carrot fly at bay.
The roots bed still needs some planning though. Last October when we sowed the garlic, we didn’t plant the row as wide as the bed. Later when we sowed onions we only sowed them in rows as wide as the row of garlic. We did the same with the carrots, parsnips and potatoes. And so we’re in the situation where we’ve got a long strip of unused space running perpendicular to our rows of crops. We’ve still got plenty of roots to sow, so the space won’t go unused. Plus we’ve got the extra part of the bed that we reclaimed from grass. So we just need to decide what to sow where.
In the miscellaneous bed at the allotment we’ve got a squash and a courgette planted out, although these are still very small, and we’ve also got a few tomato plants. We’ve still got many tomato plants in pots in our front garden waiting to be planted out, that’s a job for the next week or so. I’ve managed to get quite a few out the last couple of evenings after work.
Another tomato plant out at the allotment.
On the plus side we’re currently on top of the weeds! Our several weekends away really did set us back, as the time we should have spent planting and sowing was instead used reclaiming growing space! But that’s done now, and hopefully by next month’s report most of our growing space will be utilised.
In fact, we still have some (thoroughly chitted) main crop potatoes to plant out. This does provide us with an opportunity to try a method of growing main crop potatoes that I have often read about, but never tried. The idea is to bury them very deeply, and then just leave them. Rather than earthing them up.
Our biggest problem at the moment is germination space. We’ve got pots containing runner bean and curcubit seeds all over the house, but we still need more. We need to be more creative if we’re to get enough plants together to use all of our garden and allotment space!
Our followers on Instagram will have seen that we’ve been rather busy homebrewing lately. That has taken up a few evenings that perhaps could have been better spent in the garden or at the allotment. But we’ve now put away a lot of beer and cider to mature, and we’d like to think that at least some of that will last until Christmas.
Of course we love growing vegetables, but for the most part there is more money to be saved homebrewing than there is growing vegetables. As Brian Leverett said in his excellent Winemaking Month by Month book, “no aspect of self sufficiency has quite as many advantages as making your own wine.” We’re sure he’d think the same about beer and cider.
Plus homebrewing is an activity that Liz and I can do together in the evenings when the kids are in bed. If we were to work on the allotment instead, one of us would need to stay at home.
Well that is just about all there is to report on with regards to growing this month. June looks set to be another juggling act, as we have plans every weekend. But with so much to do both in the garden and at the allotment, we’ll be sure to get our hands dirty whenever we get the chance.
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