June Storms

Recently we've had some pretty changeable weather to deal with.  We've had a 10 day summer inbetween lots of unseasonally cool days, followed by lots of rain and then an intense windy storm.

I hope you all fared better than me with the storms!

Prior to our 10 days of summer, I had put fleece over all my germinating seeds to stop the birds from eating them before they got a chance to sprout.  And then the sun came.  With high temperatures averaging 26 degrees C.  The week before we'd had temps around 12 C.  I took the decision to keep them veiled with their fleece as I thought the sun might scorch them and I think I was the only person waiting for that heat wave to end to unveil my little beauties!

And it really did feel like unveiling my patch!  All of a sudden the areas I'd planted were fully populated with seedlings of salad, roots, onions, radishes (including baby rat tail radishes), leeks and the peas finally germinated.

On Jubilee weekend I decided its now June - I can start planting the tenders out.  Naturally I made some bunting with some ribbon, old scraps of blue/white/red cloth and my sewing machine so the whole weekend was not just dedicated to gardening but I did find myself (inbetween watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV) trying to make a start on planting the tenders out. 

I planted out 4 sunflowers, 12 french beans and 4 winter squash.  I didn't have quite enough time to plant out the tomatoes and the remaining winter squash and sunflowers.  I also left some flowers to plant out later.  They were all residing in my plastic greenhouse.

Then the rain came down, and it carried on coming down all week ending in a great big finale of a storm on Friday with very high winds.  I came home to find the greenhouse flat on the floor.  We were devastated!  We love tomatoes!!! 

I rescued all the seedlings one by one, my boyfriend helped me with the carnage.  It was hard work as I'd just come down with a cold and cancelled a weekend to London where I would have been helping my friends at Transition Town Wandsworth's Bramford Community Gardens with their Open Squares event. 

I moved them all the rescued seedlings into a shed, safe from the wind and naturally lost a few squash and some sunflowers - surprisingly all the tomatoes escaped unharmed.

Yesterday, I inspected the veg patch after the winds and all the supports were fine - naturally my boyfiend had done a sterling job with the plant supports a week earlier.  I only had one casualty on the plot - one of the winter squash had perished in the Friday storms.  Luckily I had germinated two of this italian pumpkin variety and this was one variety that had not perished in the greenhouse calamity.  So despite all the drama, I think the population of veg with all the heritage varieties amongst them had lucky escapes.

(I do realise in the grand scheme these are small problems in contrast to the people in Wales who had their homes completely flooded)

However, after all the doom, gloom and vegetable carnage, yesterday was a pleasantly sunny day with the elder flower in bloom and the blackberry bushes budding up with their flowers of promise.  So it was a day of planting - all the tomatoes are now in the new, slightly more secure home of the veg patch (that is providing we don't have another blight epidemic this year and with recent weather patterns this is highly likely!)

And today we are blessed with another sunny day - I really hope it follows true to the forecast today as they are predicting light showers in the evening.  If it remains I shall be planting out all the remaining seedlings currently in refuge in the shed and any seedlings that haven't made it will be laid to rest in my wormery to help those who made it with nutritious worm tea and worm cast!

I do hope the weather's going to start to be a little kinder to gardeners - it must be really challenging for those of us who are just starting out.

Project New Veg Plot

As regular readers will already know, I recently moved to a new home in South Birmingham. 

My new garden is absolutely huge in comparison to my 4m x 4m patio in London, but its been fairly neglected in the last few years of tenants!

Its got plenty of shrub planting and I'm lucky enough to have inherited some good edibles - an apple tree (that's not been pruned in years and years), a rhubarb and a very sorry looking globe artichoke.  I was surprised with the globe artichoke as I thought left to their own devices I thought they made sister plants - but maybe it just hasn't had much love.  It'll be getting plenty of worm juice now that I live here!

The veg plot is totally grassed over and at the top of the garden.  It's not the sunniest position of this south west facing garden but most parts probably get a good 4 hours of sunshine and this may be extended in the mid 3 months around midsummer.

At present, as we had so many waste cardboard from moving house, we've placed this over the grassed areas to try and start to kill the grass a little before a big clear up job this weekend when my boyfriend and I will both work on removing the grass and exposing the soil armed with garden forks to remove the grass so I can start planting lots of VEG!!!!

I am also working my way around the garden gradually pruning the trees and the shrubs.  Some branches of the apple tree could take our eyes as we walk on the path, so I removed all these low growing branches.  Looking forward to a proper prune job with ladders with my Mum this coming autumn.  There's also a lot of fir trees that need taming.  I think I've even got a bay tree hidden at the back, but there are other overgrown shrubs and firs in the way so I need to make a closer inspection.

The front border nearest the house also needs a lot of love and pruning.  The bed has completely grassed over but I'm thinking of replacing the grass with something like low growing chamomile.

Can you suggest an interesting low growing perennial to replace the grass at the bottom of a flower border with something more interesting?  Preferably edible or herbal :)