May 2009 Update
May means summer-proper is here and is the beginning of a rather frantic time down on our Lottie. With still plenty of watering, weeding, planting and sowing to be done; there never seems to be a dull moment and we are hoping our not insubstantial efforts this month, will help us on the way to a successful summer. Our decorative Lupins are making the place look thoroughly jolly with a pretty display, handily plugging the gap between the annual flowers and our now exhausted spring bulbs.
Our most successful plants this month by far have been our salad leaves. A mixture of various colours, flavours and textures makes them an ideal accompaniment to most early summer dishes and a very substantial, sucessional harvest to boot. Hopefully if we can keep watering at a steady rate; the cut-and-come-again varieties will see us nicely through without bolting, until the icebergs are ready for picking later in the season.
Other things doing well are our recently transplanted Courgettes which have quickly got over the initial shock of being put into their final positions and are already looking sturdy. Our Swiss Chard has also come on in leaps and bounds this month, so will be ready for picking in the not too distant future. Finally our tomatoes in the poly-tunnel have fended off an initial bought of slug attack and at last got a foot hold to begin slowly climbing up their canes.
On a slightly more disappointing note, the dedicated strawberry patch we created in spring seems to have totally failed. Clearly upset at having been moved in March, the majority of the plants are small and stunted. Few of them are bearing any leaves at all – let alone fruit producing flowers. Back to the drawing board again next year methinks. Luckily though we also have a small area at home where several of their brethren are looking much perkier and so should hopefully, save us from utter strawberry withdrawal in 2009.
Some of the main tasks this month have been the summer crops, by way of completing our brassica beds and the transplanting of our sweetcorn. The latter of which went out on the plot first and enjoyed the early May warmth. Sadly, since then they seem to have gone into shock and several of them have died. Only through enthusiastic watering have the others survived and so, some filling-in will be called for as soon as we can raise more seedlings to replace the losses.
The Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Purple Sprouting, Kale and Brussels Sprouts have faired much better and are settling in nicely to their brand spanking new protective cages. These have been made as large as possible to cater for good growth and by using sturdier materials, we hope they will fair better against summer wind and rain than their 2008 counterparts.
Lastly this month, our attention turns to our fruit, the Apple trees seem to be setting lots of lovely fruits for harvest in the autumn and our blackberry bush has come back from the dead. Thereby reviving our hope of an even better fruit haul before the year comes to a close.
One small problem in this sector relating to the Raspberries has come into focus this year. You may remember last season we had a bumper crop and high hopes of an even better one, with the addition of even more canes over the winter. Well, it seems the established canes have managed to spread their roots all the way to the front of the fruit cage, under the path and onto the other side of the plot. The problem with this is the way the Rasps reproduce underground, which means it has sent up new canes at the edge of its root system – resulting in about a dozen of these little fellas’ making a nuisance of themselves in the main seed bed. This would be all well and good if we were able to move the blighters back into their proper position, but unfortunately you can’t move a Raspberry cane- juvenile or no, during its growing season. It would result in the death of the cane and with it, some of next year’s crop. So they’ll just have to stay where they are until we can move them back to their allotted space in the winter – argh!
Carrying on the abundant theme however, we made our first crop of Gooseberries a few days ago. This rather difficult and painful exploit was rewarded with 4 ½ lb’s of the tart little green fruits, with the prospect of about three times that still on the bushes at various stages of development. We and many of our family and friends, will undoubtedly be wading our way through them in various forms for about the next two months. Lucky then that they are on of our all time favourites.
All in all this month has had its up’s and its down’s. We’ve had some slug and pigeon damage but it must be said that the failures are far more manageable when the weather is pleasant and you are not having all your crops simultaneously decimated by bunnies. So all in all – we say hurrah for summer and bring on the harvests.
Green Tip of the Month:
Make clever little tops for your bamboo canes by using the discarded bottles of small pro-biotic type drinks. They will fit snugly over the top of the cane and the elongated design generally means they are reluctant to fall off (unlike the other often co-opted item to perform this duty - the ever reliable plant pot), you'll be recycling at the same time.
Thanks to dear friend Fran and her allotment guru dad for this tip! x
May Checklist:
- Remove any bolting plants from beds of radish, salad, onions adn brassicas.
- Plant out delicate crops such as courgettes, squashes, pumpkins and sweetcorn.
- Cut back old foliage from spring bulbs to make way for annual flowers.
- Prepare spud and onion sacks ready for harvest in the next few months.
- Harvest and store early spring fruits such as gooseberries, largest first to allow the smaller ones to continue growing.
- Be vigilant for slugs and pigeons having dinner at your expense, use fleece, netting and egg-shells to deter them.
- Continue planting runner beans and sowing fas growing crops sucessionally.