Summer's here

[alan refail]

Was that summer then?

No - be ready for hosepipe bans.

[Clive.]

Mighty howling wind here today....and a few sharp hail showers about with added thunder.....
The blossom is blowing up the street like a blizzard...

Sweetcorn taken to work and planted out this morning...and then likewise here...
Watered in the planting holes first..then around at part back fill...and dry soil pulled over to trap in the moisture....and hopefully remaining sheltered.

Time now for some Lincolnshire sausages, Swift new Potatoes, Spring Cabbage, gravy and Bramley Apple sauce. ....Stilton cheese and biscuits for "pudding"

Clive.

[oldherbaceous]

Suppose i better make my dry old cheese sandwich.

[alan refail]

Suppose i better make my dry old cheese sandwich.

[Geoff]

Must be summer, just eaten three firsts. First Early Potatoes (Rocket), first new season Cabbage (Primo) and first Carrots (Ideal Red). With lamb from the farm almost next door and Rhubarb crumble to follow there weren't many food miles involved.
By the way, what do you reckon is the best / quickest early Carrot? Sowed Ideal Red and Amsterdam Forcing under cloche in cold greenhouse on 23rd February and the Ideal Red are well ahead of the Amsterdam Forcing.

[Mike Vogel]

I've just eaten my first strawberries. But the carrots are still at the seedling stage. Early spuds were done in by the frost in mid-May.

Back to page 1. The idea of the bum as a counterweight to the bosom reminds me of my son at 4 years old 30 years ago. My wife rode a Pashley trike because she can't balance on a 2-wheeler. When she explained that to Ben, he brightly asked "is that because of those things at the front?"

[oldherbaceous]

And the warm weather will resume from today.

Now just watch the weeds grow.

[Clive.]

Now just watch the weeds grow.

Don't remind me....!!

Clive.

[oldherbaceous]

Now just watch the weeds grow.

Sorry Clive, you asked not to be reminded of that, how silly of me.

[Monika]

I did my monthly totting up of weather records yesterday and it confirms what I suspected: we had just 23mm (just short of 1 inch) of rain in May, following the 19.5mm (even less!) in the whole of April. Yesterday, Tuesday, it was supposed to pour here but just produced 5mm (about 1/4 inch). it really is getting quite desperate. Normally, the farmers here would be busy silaging now, but the grass has barely grown at all. Certainly, on the small Nature Reserve we look after there are large swathes of just brown where the grass has died off.

Our broad beans at home which have been watered regularly are about three times as high as the ones on the allotment (both Masterpiece Green Longpod and planted around the same time). Strangely, they are both flowering but presumably the allotment ones will bear far fewer or shorter beans.

[Nature's Babe]

Haven't got all my veggie beds mulched yet Monika, but the mulched ones are still nice and moist underneath the mulch and doing well, like you we have had very little rain. I mulch with straw, then add grass clippings spent crops, and seed free weeds are first dried on the paths then added. It makes weeding much easier when the soil isn't rock hard.!!

[Monika]

We have a few beds mulched, Nature's Babe, but I find the snails hide under the mulch and create havoc! We don't get many slugs but lots of snails because of the surrounding dry stone walls (mainly lime stone) and Nemaslug doesn't work against snails. of course.

[Nature's Babe]

Ah, my ducks love the snails, and the chickens clean each veggie bed when they're empty !

[alan refail]

Well that's the courgettes, pumpkins and runners planted. Potatoes to try tomorrow three quarters of an acre of grass cut. And it looks as if the rain is arriving tomorrow just on cue for me to have a relaxing week. I am confident summer will be back soon and will stay with us this year.

[oldherbaceous]

Not sure where all this promised rain has got to!