May week 3

Polytunnel showing baby carrots

Well May certainly disappeared this week,

snow, then rain, then hail and a constant cold north wind thank goodness for polytunnels. With this weather our polytunnel is weeded and never been in such good condition! Despite the wintry weather the garden continues to grow at full speed, our Rhubarb is providing the first few stems for harvest, our Asparagus shoots are now opening and the Cherry Trees are now in bloom.

Work in the garden has taken a slight pause with the colder weather, we have held back on planting out a lot of our seedlings now until the weather warms up. Instead we have been focused on improving our water collection facilities and weeding the Polytunnel.

Flowers

Aquilegia sp.

We are now approaching the later part of the Spring seed sowing season and with it comes the time to start sowing bi-annual seeds. These are things like Forget-Me-Knots, Foxgloves, Bellis etc. So if you sow this week you’ll have a beautiful display next year.

Keep on top of the weeding, and you’ll be thankful you did in the summer.

May is a great month for flowers and certainly a very rewarding one is Aquilegia (Grannys bonnet). Very easy to grow from seed, one plant will seed itself around the garden and you will never be short of Aquilegia again!

Strawberries in polytunnel starting to turn red

Vegetables

Continue to sow vegetables.

 If your weather has been cold make sure not to plant anything out and keep them under shelter at night until the warmth and risk of frost has gone.

Potted up tomoatoes will soon need to be planted into their final positions for the summer, once they reach adequate size.

Blue Kale

This weather has certainly been a change from the last few weeks, but it has brought with it some much needed rain. And hopefully we will be back to some warmer weather soon.