The gardening week (June - Week 2, 2025)
All a bit of a rush
Not just gardening
I returned home to sunshine, after five days away, my longest ‘holiday’ for several years. I don’t normally take holidays, I have nothing to escape from and everything I want is already here, with two main exceptions. Two of my daughters and their families live down south and like all of my girls, they live busy lives, so if I want to see them regularly I have to travel. The only other reason I travel is for variety, variety of company, scenery and movement. We have few hills, here on the coast, so if I want a good hike then I need to get in the car.
I also feel my mind refreshed by a change in scenery, a change of pace or conversation. Otherwise I’m content. I’m one of those people who could spend all of their lives studying a patch of forest floor and never get bored.
Most of my kids though, rebelling against my preference for indulging myself and staying close to home, are world travellers (this newsletter pays the offsets for their flights). As a result I get plenty of vicarvious travel in my life, but I’m never jealous of it … well that’s not totally true, there was that one photo from the Swiss alps.
Anyway, I had a great time. I spent a lot of time playing, even more time in intellectual discussion and debate, ate a lot of cakes, walked a lot, especially around north London and along as many canals and rivers as we could find. It’s amazing how far you can walk in London and hardly see a car.
We also visited the V&A Store, an incredible warehouse of treasures and art. It would be hard to improve, but for one thing, it would have made my day to have included a feature on famous warehouses of artifacts in TV and films. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Warehouse 13, National Treasure and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D immediately spring to mind.
I returned to lots of hugs, ripe tomatoes, cherries and blueberries and lots of plants that needed to go in the ground, always a highlight of going away.
Gardening problems this week
It’s been a fairly good week, but there are almost always problems. If we don’t have problems, we are not learning!
I finally removed the net on the carrot beds, expecting to resow them. I was very surprised to find that half of the bed had perfect germination and the other half had 50% germination. I’m mystified.
We harvested our first onions with onion fly maggots, fortunately these were salad onions and we were able to just cut off the base. Fingers crossed for the remaining earlies and main-crops.
We are getting through a lot of baby savoy cabbages at the moment, one of them had started to rot in the centre. Hopefully it was a one off, because we have a lot more to come.
The celariac and celery in the front garden has been ravaged by leaf miner
The cherry harvest is modest at best, but everything else is great, so it’s hard to complain
Old new stuff
Here’s a few reminders of things that are already in the database/book, but that anyone who’s started to follow me recently might not know about.
Every time I mentioned the types of pots and module trays that I use I get a lot of questions. I use a lot of Containerwise products now and I like them a lot, but they are very expensive and much cheaper, fairly durable options continue to get a lot of use too. I’ve a chapter in my eBook where I go through the products that I use, and I made a video specifically on this topic as well.
Finally I put all of this information into my database, which you can find here.
Pests of the month
Pests vary by location, so your pests and my pests will vary. This is what I’m dealing with though:
Slugs and snails are still an issue, but less so now as I’ve cleared almost all of my winter/spring plantings and taken the slugs and snails out at the same time. Strulch helps and I’ve been using last years Strulch for the peppers and savings the new Strulch for the melons. Watch out though, fresh strulch can ‘burn’ melon leaves, if the beds aren’t well ventilated!
Carrot fly is out and about now, so all of my carrots are high up on my IBC tanks, or covered. I generally start with a temporary cover of Envirotect while the carrots are establishing and I’m thinning and weeding and looking out for slugs and snails, but once they are established I use a fine net, in a few weeks time. I’m also watering with the Fruit and Veg Protection nematode because carrots are too important a crop for me to risk failure.
Onion fly has arrived, but so far we havn’t had any losses. Last year was our worst so far and affected the main crop onions and shallots on Debbie’s plot, as a result we are growing most of our onions at home this year and the shallots are on my plot. I don’t net them (so far) but I do water with the Fruit and Veg Protection nematode, but that didn’t help that much last year.
Cabbage root fly arrives now and in previous years I’ve lost a lot of brassicas to it. I used to try collars, but they always blow away here, so now I use the Fruit and Veg Protection nematodes. I water the brassicas with it when they are in their pots and then every two weeks after planting. This year I’ve been forced into using a fine net over my brassicas even though I almost always find that the net hides as many problems as it protects from, so I prefer to see problems early through butterfly net (on the allotment) and bird net (in the kitchen garden)
There are a few types of leaf miner, but up north the worst offender is Beet Leaf Miner and so I usually cover my beetroot, otherwise they can make quite a mess of it. They go for chard and perpetual spinach too, which we have in the kitchen garden, but we don’t cover that, we just watch it every day and squash any grubs in the leaves as soon as possible. It’s rampant on the allotment, but not so bad in the garden
Moths and butterflies are starting to make an appearance, although so far I’ve only found a few eggs and caterpillars. At home I don’t cover my brassicas because I usually wander around most days and spot problems fairly early. Once I remove nets and eggs are more in evidence I will start spraying with Bacillus Thuringiensis
Codling moth is about now and it’s a challenging one to deal with, but we have gradually transitioned to varieties that seem resistant. A lot of people mention using Codling moth traps, but these are really only designed to tell you when to spray, they are not effective as a way to prevent Codling moths laying eggs. They might work if you only have a few trees, all close together, but we have 30+ trees, all over the place
For more on pests see my growing guides and this chapter of my eBook.
More compost issues
The compost that I trialled a couple of weeks ago proved unsuitable for seedlings, it crusted over and held on to too much water, it was also very black, so it was impossible to determine how wet it was. It did however prove to be fine for the carrots, or at least for half of the carrots, as nearly 100% pushed through it. I won’t however be using it again, as it’s composted mostly of finely shedded wood.
I also trialled the horse manure from the same company, I had high hopes, which were dashed. It was made from wood shavings, used as stable bedding and had a low manure content. The wood shavings weren’t very well composted. So another compost struck off the list.
Fortunately their spent mushroom compost is excellent and I use that the most and my local garden centre has good farmyard manure and multipurpose compost, that I use for most sowing, pricking and potting on.
Summer planning overview
As mentioned above, you can now browse my seasonal guides for each type of growing environment that you have, you can find those here.
First harvests of 2025
Harvests are incredible now! We have virtually everything that we could hope for at this time of year. I’m especially enjoying my allotment breakfasts.
This week the blueberries arrived, although only one bush, which reminds me that I need to get a few more early varieties! I’ve tried a few gooseberries, but they are not quite ready, but the raspberries and cherries are! We now are in bean abundance and have just enough tomatoes for salads and the little kids.
The big new though is that I’ve now harvested my softneck garlic and it turned out great, with just one split bulb and good size and skin quality, so they should be great keepers.
It’s amazing how quickly I get used to such abundance, writing this newsletter reminds me how special it is!
Last harvests
So many last harvests this week, as we loose our early crops, but the trick is to have the next successions arriving just in time. We are nearly there.
The allotment peas have been incredibly abundant, but they are coming to an end now, the peas in the kitchen garden should be ready next week, but we might be without peas for a few days. The October sown carrots are finishing and to be honest they are slightly tough now eaten fresh, they are fine cooked, but this February sown carrots are ready. The January sown beets are getting a bit of mildew, so I will be clearing those soon, but the main crop beets are ready now, or at least a few of them are. It always surpirses me how variable the growth rates of beets is. I’m going to leave the asparagus to grow on now, to build up it’s reserves for next year. I’ve harvested the second bed of Toughball onions and the garlic on my plot, but we still have garlic to harvest on Debbie’s plot and we harvested the last of the wet/green garlic last week.
The only meaningful last harvest is the turnips and radish, which we don’t sow again until August, but it’s unfair to complain, given how much we have available to eat.
Sowings for the week
A lot of important sowings this week. More successions of calabrese and cauliflower for autumn, the last batch of PSB for spring, kales for winter and spring. I’m also excited to be sowing a late succession of sugar snaps for late summer/autumn, something I’ve never done before. I’m planting my last potatoes too, as well as my autumn fennel.
I always like to sow a few extra carrots, in case we suffer problems with slugs in our main beds and I always like to have spare beetroot, because beets are such an incredibly healthy, flexible and versatile crop, much more so than chard.
Here’s everything sown to date, in more detail.
Not germinated yet
Everything’s germinated that’s going to.
Germinated this week
Nothing this week.
Pricked out
Nothing this week.
Potted on this week
Nothing this week.
Conservatory progress
Our poor old cucumber plant is looking a bit sad now, but it’s given us hundreds of fruits so far and it keeps on providing for us, but as soon as we have fruits from the polytunnel plants it will be composted and a late succession will take it’s place.
Greenhouse progress
No big changes in the greenhouse this week really, although the arrival of the beans and tomatoes is great news. The Zephr courgette will soon be composted, as it has bad mildew and it’s an old plant now, that’s done it’s duty. The beans always get disease on the lower leaves, but it doesn’t affect the yield.
We should have a few peppers next week, but overall the greenhouse is in decline now, it will keep giving us earlies for another month, but then it will be time to give it a good clear out and start replanting for autumn.
Polytunnel progress
The beans have arrived in the tunnel, but other than that it’s just steady progress.
Allotment and garden progress
I’m starting to clear beds at home and get them replanted now, it’s slow progress though. As so often happens I’ve over planted lettuces, which I have to do just in case of losses, but this year everything has turned out fine, so I have too much, so I’m harvesting full heads.
On the allotment the big news is that I’ve harvested the garlic and it’s a wonderful crop. I will have a video of that up shortly. I used my technique of mulching with mushroom compost in April and that seems to give it just the nitrogen boost that it needs, as well as keeping it moist. I’ve reconditioned the bed, all ready for extra savoy cabbages to go in.
I’ve also re-sown the carrots, which failed in one half of my long bed.
I seem to have done a lot more, but I think it’s more that I’ve been busy, trying to cram 7 days of work into 3 days.
Willow also cut the lawn for me, it’s first cut for quite a few weeks, given the drought. As you can see, she was ‘very unhappy’ about the chore!
Planted this week
I keep on planting melons, as soon as we’ve harvested the cauliflowers that they follow, I’ve only one plant left to go in now.
I have no space now, so all my planting is going into gaps, fortunately there’s plenty of space around the peppers, melons and courgettes, so I’m growing lettuces there.
Here’s everything planted this year so far.
Waiting to be planted out
Not much left now and I’m short of space. The melon has an allocated spot, but the rest is a challenge. I’m thinking of putting the NZ spinach in the polytunnel, has anyone tried that?
Sowing’s for next week
The last sowing of calabrese and cauliflower, salad onions and lettuce for summer.
Growing guides for June
This link takes you to all of my monthly guides, where you can find a lot more than just my sowing guides. I particularly like the list of videos produced in the relevant month in years gone by. Click here for June’s guides.
Because I’m always experimenting you might find me sowing a few things that are not on this list, but you can always look those up from the complete list of guides, which you can find here.
Sowing Guide for June
Weekly Harvest
Debbie did the harvest on her own last weekend, while I was away, so we only harvested for family. We finally have our own tomatoes!
Useful links
Top level links
The website associated with this newsletter
My free eBook - Outgrow : The Art and Practice of Self-sufficiency
My complete gardening database real time access to everything!
My Amazon shop, which lists the gardening products I use, with comments
If you can afford it, you can buy me a cake or some seeds
The most useful lower level links
The reference info section of my eBook, lists what I actually sowed, planted, harvested each month, plus all of the tours and guide videos for that month
Monthly growing guides (what to sow, harvest fresh and eat from the store room each month)
Comprehensive growing guides to every type of veg that I grow
The section of my eBook that covers the basic tools and techniques of gardening (sowing, planting, pests, weeds etc)
The section of my eBook that covers the more advanced tools and techniques of gardening ( extending the season, successional plantings, spacing)
Using grow lights and alternatives to extend the season
Introduction to growing under cover with fleece, low tunnels, polytunnels etc
The chapter of my eBook that covers conservatory gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers greenhouse gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers polytunnel gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers cold frames and low tunnel gardening
The chapter of my eBook that covers extending the season with fleece
The chapter of my eBook that covers outdoor gardening
A guide to my database, how to use it and how to take a copy of it
Useful database links
The types of veg that I grow, roughly ranked in my order of priority
The varieties of herbs, fruit and veg that I’m growing this year
Overview of all of the successions for year round gardening (I don’t grow/recommend all of them) main crops successions are the most reliable
What I’ve sowed so far this year
How long each type of seed typically takes to germinate
What I’ve planted to far this year
What I’ve harvested so far this year
First harvest dates for key successions
The pots and trays that I use with my comments and ratings
The nets and other covers that I use with my comments and ratings
Information on root depth for each type of veg
Information on germination temperature for each type of veg
Information on pesticide use for each type of fruit and veg
List of fruits and veggies that benefit from Mycorrhizal associations
How long seeds last for each type of veg
Which types of veg are heavy, medium and light feeders
Outgrow : The Art and Practice of Self-sufficiency is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Outgrow : The Art and Practice of Self-sufficiency is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.