Monday 16 May 2016

Late Frost Maybe?

Monday was another lovely day and we made the most of the good weather getting some beds prepared down on the plot ready for more vegetables.

 

It wasn't all good news though. The temperature on Sunday fell to 2.7°C (36.9°F) and. despite my best efforts to protect our early potatoes Casablanca from any frost by earthing them up, they couldn't help themselves and pushed shoots out of the soil.

 

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Frost Damaged Early Potato - Casablanca

I'm sure the potatoes will recover from the damage they always have done in the past when they've been caught by a bit of late frost.

 

With the help of the cultivator a few beds were turned over ready for planting more crops over the next few days.

 

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Sweet Peas and Squash Crown Prince will be planted in this bed

 

 

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This bed was dug over ready for later plantings of brassicas. The bed to the left is already planted up with our main crop potatoes and the bed on the right was dug over and covered with weed control fabric and is ready for our runner and climbing French bean crops.

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Sue started clearing away the grass from this little bed which had become rather neglected. Once cleared I'm hoping to plant it up with the few remaining seed potato we have.

 

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The part of this bed which was dug over will be planted up with annual flower seeds over the course of the summer.

 

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Quality Plug Plants

Tuesday was a lovely May day with plenty of sunshine and pleasantly warm.

 

I've been a bit critical of the quality of some of the plug plants we've received over the last couple of years. They've normally gone on to produce decent quality plants after they've had some loving care and attention. We'd ordered some fuchsia and lavender plug plants from Thompson & Morgan when they were on special offer. I had my concerns about the quality of the plants we would receive especially as they were on offer. Over the last week both sets of plants have arrived and I've been very pleased with the plants supplied.

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Hardy Fuchsia Collection

 

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Lavender Hidcote & Munstead

 

All the plug plants are now transplanted and if they don't grow on to produce some decent plants I don't think we can blame it on the poor quality of the plants we received.

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The plants have been left in the greenhouse but will be moved into the cold frame outside as soon as there is some room available. We seem to be struggling for growing space at home at the moment but that's not really unusual at this time of the year.

 

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Long Season Daffs

It wasn't very pleasant at all on Wednesday. It was fairly mild but we had heavy showers throughout the day putting any gardening out of the question.

 

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It seems ages ago now that photos of daffodils appeared on blog as the early sign of spring. I posted this picture of our first daffodils back on 15 February.

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Taken on Monday 15 February 2016

Sue added lots of bulbs to one of our newly renovated beds at home to give it a bit of spring colour. In it are some late flowering daffodils which are only just coming into their best.

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Taken on Tuesday 17 May 2016

I think we've had a few daffodils in flower since I took that first photo back in February. We might just about get to the end of May with daffodils still in flowering and putting on a good display.

 

Thursday 19 May 2016

Picturesque Bird Table

Thursday was mostly dull but the rain held off until late afternoon. It was quite mild in the early part of the afternoon too.

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Usually one of my first jobs of the day is to pop outside and replenish the bird tables and feeders. In winter it's a job to get done as soon as possible and get back into the warmth of the house. At this time of year it's often a far more leisurely job and I have a look around the garden to see how our borders are filling up and check inside the greenhouse and cold frame to see if any watering needs doing.

 

I thought this morning how much more pleasant it is to sprinkle some seed on the bird table with the crab apple, John Downie in full flower along with rhododendron, Elizabeth. I don't suppose for one minute the birds take much notice in the change of scenery.

 

My morning inspection revealed that our garden fruit is progressing nicely at the moment. Our potted cherry tree Stella looks as though it could live up to its name and give us a stellar crop of cherries this year.

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There's still plenty of time for things to go wrong before we're harvesting any cherries but at least some of the flowers have set fruit. In the greenhouse our apricots are progressing well.

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The fruits are continuing to swell. We have lost one or two fruits that didn't progress much from the immature stage. They dried up and fell off the tree. So far though so good.

 

Friday 20 May 2016

We Need These at the Allotment

Over the last few days that lovely May weather has given way unsettled conditions with a few showers and not a lot of sunshine.

 

We decided  on another trip to North Yorkshire on Friday to visit The National Centre For Birds Of Prey situated in Duncombe Park at Helmsley. We almost didn't set off as the weather was cloudy and rain was in the air. We passed through some showers on the way to Helmsley and, at one point, thought we might well be turning around and heading home. As it turned out the weather wasn't too bad.

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There was a strong cool breeze which helped the larger birds in the flying displays but at times heavy clouds threatened rain.

 

As you may well be aware on our allotment plot we have a problem with wood pigeons. At times they seem to eat anything that's green and not protected from them. We could do with a couple of these on the plot to reduce the wood pigeon population.

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