Life on the Weald, May 2018
One of the consequences of living by the sea is that children, grandchildren and the wider family and friends visit quite often. This was an intended consequence and we love having visitors but we do tend to lose weekends on the allotment!
We hadn't done as much preparatory work as we should in April as we lost a whole weekend for the London Marathon, then we went away for a week to coincide with Sylvi's birthday and then my daughter and family came down for a weekend (although it was so wet and miserable that in all honesty we wouldn't have ventured to the allotment).
In May, my eldest son and family visited for the early bank holiday weekend and shortly after we disappeared for a week to Spain. The weather for the early May holiday was extremely good and whilst we neglected the allotment, we made good use of the garden
We also got the barbecue
out for only the second time this year and also put the smoker to good use with
smoked pork ribs and a slow smoked been joint.
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| Chicken and lamb kebabs |
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| smoked beef and pork ribs |
Surprisingly though, we grabbed a few hours later in the week and got some work done on the plot and its looking reasonably good.
On my first visit of the month I was pleased to see that the rhubarb which we had transplanted had taken well.
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| rhubarb |
And in those dark November/December days I had sown some winter lettuces in seed trays at home. They had germinated indoors but spent January and February outdoors before being planted out in March. I was surprised to see that they had survived!
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| Vailan, winter sown lettuces |
The peas were also doing well......
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| Kelvedon Wonder peas |
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and the broad beans sown in March were coming along.
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| Meteor broad beans |
Early May and the blueberries are in full flower...........
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| Blueberries |
............. and the apple is in blossom.
We also had signs of the first gooseberries in early May
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| gooseberry 4 May |
And by 25 May we had a prolific crop
Sadly, two days later the entire crop had disappeared - squirrels? pigeons? herring gulls? We just don't know. Unlikely to have been people as they weren't ripe. But next year I will have to think of netting them. We lost our entire crop of blueberries last year so netting them is a priority for this month.
The first early potatoes are doing well...
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| First early Rocket potatoes - 4 May |
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Vivaldi and Charlotte first early potatoes - 4 May
At the beginning of May, the pond was covered in pond weed and there was no evidence of frogs or toads returning, but the water irises planted last year are looking good and hopefully will flower this year. If there are no signs of our amphibians returning by the end of the month, I think I might import some spawn or tadpoles.
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| Garden pond and irises - 4 May |
We still have plentiful supplies of chard and perpetual spinach, some of which is beginning to go to seed. There are also bluebells everywhere.
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chard and bluebells - coexistence
We have had a good crop of broad beans from the Aquadulce sown in November
Sowing in November gives a crop a few weeks ahead of those sown in February/March which usually means they avoid blackfly - and sure enough the ones sown in February are now infested.
I have repaired the frame that I built for last year's tromboncino and have used it to make a frame for the runner beans.
I confess that I haven't grown them from seed but bought some plants from the garden centre and supplemented them with some bought from the Allotment Federation's plant sale. I also bought some courgette plants from the plant sale but am not sure of the variety. I have cleared the jungle where the sprouts and cabbages grew last year and had to dig out nettles and brambles and it will be a challenge to keep both under control.
By the end of the month the water iris was in flower
But still no sign of any frogs or toads. By chance someone on the local "Nextdoor" social media site was offering tadpoles so I collected some and transferred them to the pond
By the end of the month we were harvesting Broad Beans and Peas and the raspberries were just beginning to ripen. Looks like we'll have a good harvest in June.
John AustinHove, May 2018
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