The gardening week (June - Week 3, 2025)
Catching up and pushing on
Not just gardening
I’ve had a chest infection since I finished writing last week’s newsletter on Thursday until Tuesday this week, which knocked me back, leaving me quite exhausted. One of the few disadvantages of having a granddaughter at nursery and seeing her several times a week. I’m recovered now and catching up quickly.
At this time of year I’ve often been on the verge of falling out of love with gardening, or in some years ready to divorce. Each year I try to manage the transition from spring to summer better, but it’s always a lot of work, at a time when I’d often prefer to be doing something else. It also often takes me by surprise because back in May I think I’m all finished with the re-planting. Then as soon as I get to June I find that so many beds need replanting again!
Everything moves so fast in late spring and summer, all of these spinach and lettuce beds need to come out, then the early peas finish, then it’s the over-wintered onions, not long after that it’s the garlic and a few weeks later the elephant garlic. Soon the early strawberries finish and need cutting back and on it goes. In May I was dreaming of a relaxed summer and June dashes those dreams. Every year there’s a few things that go wrong too, one year all of the onions went to seed for example.
Anyway year’s of practice have delivered a solution, double down and press on. I just need to remind myself how much I love gardening, what I don’t love is loosing control of the garden. What does loosing control look like: weeds, failed crops, finished crops left to decline, harvests not picked. If I double down on these things, the gardens look great and I’m happy again. So that’s what this week’s been about for me, doubling down on the gardening, putting in the effort, but also finding a bit of balance, cycling every morning, reading in Caffe Nero for an hour before a busy day, playing with the little kids most nights and spending my evenings watering.
It also reminds me how much I love gardening from October until April, the pace is so much slower, I can neglect the garden for a week and nothing much changes, at least nothing that a day of effort can’t fix. That’s the beauty and curse of summer gardening, so much growth, so much watering, so much weeding, so much harvesting. Definitely no time to be sick!
For context, after all of this moaning and feeling sorry for myself, I’ve only done 20 hours of gardening this week, albeit mostly squeezed into 4 days.
Another way to garden
I love to walk around my allotment site and admire some of the better plots and a few exceptional plots, none of which garden like I do, but all of which provide inspirational examples of different ways to garden. There are two plot that I love that are exceptionally infrastructure light, one has nothing but soil and grass paths and one even dispenses with the grass and just has soil paths. Both are beautiful and extremely productive for two seasons a year. Contrast that with my very infrastructure heavy plot. Admittedly one of the reasons I’m so infrastructure heavy is because I like to minimise my effort and because I like plastic, rather than fleece, but still, there’s something wonderful about turning noting but soil into abundance.
This week I had a tour around another plot that I’d previously only admired from afar. It’s a small plot and focusses very heavily on fruits and as such, it too is mainly a two season plot. There are five things that really set this plot apart:
First how well tended it is, it’s obviously the subject of a great deal of love and attention and being a very small plot, tended by a very passionate allotmenteer, that’s not hard to achieve. It’s really lovely to see what can be achieved when more time is lavished on a plot, in stark contrast to my one hour a day average.
The plot holder is also really on top of their successions, for example she’s already cleared her first peas and has three more successions on the go.
I also admire her appetite for risk, lots of heat lovers set out well before our last frost date, but this year it worked. If you grow spares, then it often pays to take a risk here in St Annes and it’s impressive when it works!
Next she has a dedicated melon house, having a greenhouse set aside for melons allows you to run it very warm, interestingly it’s completely disease free too, despite being quite humid and with only moderate air circulation. It is however amazing for this time of year, at least 4 weeks ahead of my melons and very space efficient, which brings me to the last point
Everything is planted as soon as she dare. I can’t do this on the allotment, because every bed is full of winter and then spring crops, but her’s are empty in spring, tempting her to plant out and how wonderful it is, her tomato house is similarly impressive
Now, I do - as you know - have a greenhouse at home, full to bursting with tomatoes, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers, French beans etc, but then I have heat and grow lights. In this case she has none of these advantages and is still impressively far on. I’m especially impressed by the melons and maybe I should make the effort next year and grow less peppers and add early melons to my greenhouse mix.
Anyway, she’s looking forward to a very impressive harvest of summer fruits, nice and early, whereas I’m satisfied with my much longer, continuous harvest period, but if I ever had to downsize my growing space, or my time, her’s would be a great way to go!
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!
One of my green bush courgettes has essentially died, after giving us dozens of fruits over the last 5 weeks. The combination of age, high winds and wet weather was too much for it. I have another plant of the same age, that’s still clinging on. I don’t mind much though, because my main-crop plants are close now.
Sticking with courgettes, the Zephyr, that is still in the greenhouse is now close to finishing, due to mildew. Again I’m happy about this, because it makes space for my next and final succession of tomatoes, but it looks a mess.
My allotment peas, both sugarsnaps and mangetout have now finished and my next batch in the garden are not quite ready, I’m a few days off. That’s not really a problem, the problem is not having my next succession on the way. I usually avoid this next succession because of mildew, but as it happens my favourite sugarsnaps are mildew resistant, so I should have sown more, I’ve now corrected that
As regular readers will know I usually plant Lilia (or North Holland Blood Red) for my spring harvest of salad onions, some sown back in August and some in January. The January sown one’s were on Debbie’s plot and they got onion fly. The August sown one’s are on my plot and I cleared them this week, they were free of onion fly, but the adjacent bed of Guardsman had a few bulbs with maggots too. The reason I sow Lilia is that if I end up with a glut (I did this year) I can leave them to bulb in late spring and harvest them now, to eat in June and July, while I wait for my main-crop onions to be ready. This worked out well again this year.
Strawberries
My second early strawberries are Sweetheart and they are very prolific but ageing now, I’m planning to remove them in July and turn the bed back to annual crops. I’m thinking now that I will give up on traditional strawberries going forward and switch over completely to ever bearing/day neutral ones. They are not quite as productive week to week, but they keep on giving fruits for several months. Less of a glut, superb taste and much bigger overall yield. The other benefit is that they seem to last longer on the plants before spoiling. They also work really well for forcing - I started harvesting mine in mid-April - so one variety works for the whole growing season. My favourites are Mara Des Bios, but I have two other varieties of ever bearers that I’m experimenting with.
You might remember that I mulch my strawberry bed with wood chip. This year in the very wet weather we had a few weeks ago I had some losses. Slugs would open up wounds in the skin and then wood lice would move in. Now that the weather is drier this doesn’t seem to be a problem and I’m getting very few losses.
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.
We are now approaching preserving season! We don’t preserve a huge quantity, but we do preserve a lot of variety. We have a list of everything we do, including recipes and photos in this database. Here’s a very small selection of them.
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 saving 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 and we have had some losses, but so far only on old salad onion beds. 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. I might have to net them next year, which will be a real shame.
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). In both of my netted frames this week I saw cabbage whites UNDER the nets.
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.
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
I’ve finally harvested my first peppers from the greenhouse and we now have plenty of tomatoes for salads. I’ve cleared all of the garlic on my plot and this week the second bed of Toughball onions. This second bed was better than the plants on the allotment, with no soft spots at all. Finally I’ve harvested enough lilia red onions to last us until August. We are also awash with raspberries and we have just enough French beans!
It’s amazing how quickly I get used to such abundance, writing this newsletter reminds me how special it is!
Last harvests
I’ve now cleared the last of the allotment peas, although I have sown replacements in modules to go in one of my new narrow beds. After the peas I’m sowing Algarve French beans and I think I will sow them direct, now it’s nice and warm. I’ve also cleared the last of the cauliflowers on my plot and that’s the last of them, I’m now focussed on brassicas for winter. On Debbie’s plot we still have a few gaps to plant up. I’ve now harvested all types of onion, sowed last year, we are currently eating our late February sowings and they are so good!
Sowings for the week
A few of these were probably on last week’s list, I expected to sow them last week, but then I got ill with a chest infection, so they ended up being this week. I’ve decided to sow another batch of cucumbers, this will allow me to pull the polytunnel cucumbers early if I need to due to disease, since this year I’m not growing grafted plants. I’ve also sown a lot more winter salad carrots than in previous years and a third succession of French beans.
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
Lots of veg coming ready for planting soon for winter harvests.
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.
With that objective in mind I’ve now pinched out the growing tips on the tomatoes, so I can get all of the six trusses of fruits harvested as quickly as possible, so that I can replace them with my late crop.
Polytunnel progress
I’ve given the polytunnel a really good clear out and tidy up. I grow a lot less in my polytunnel than most people would, because to be honest it’s often too hot and even with the modest number of plants in there, we still have more than enough to feed us year round. My objective therefore is to make it fairly productive, easy to look after, easy to water and pleasant to sit out in, when the weather’s not blistering hot.
The beans have arrived in the tunnel, but other than that it’s just steady progress. I’ve now moved the early tomatoes outside, where they can enjoy full sun and more moderate temperatures.
The tomato progress is quite variable, the side shoots from the early plants are really romping away, with many trusses now, the plants grown from seed are thin and weak, mainly due to competition from the beetroot and celery. I will be trimming the celery tops soon (an experiment) and taking out the beetroot, so that should help. The tomatoes with no competition, planted later are also growing very well. The melons are growing ok, but I can’t say they are thriving, due to the wet and windy weather, even in the polytunnel as I always have the doors partly open.
Allotment and garden progress
It’s been a busy few days on the plot, catching up after my holiday and chest infection. I’m mainly harvesting and clearing beds, to make way for late crops, mainly winter crops now. I’ve cleared the onions from the asparagus bed and I will leave that to grow on now and trim it back in Autumn.
I’ve cleared the peas from my narrow bed, next to my seating area and re-sown that bed with French beans.
I’ve removed another bed on my plot, to make way for a picnic table and work bench and I’ve not the new posts in, I will be putting two more narrow beds in, which will soon be planted up, one with peas and the other, probably with brussels.
I used one of the wooden frames that I removed to add a cold-frame top to yet another bed on my plot, meaning that all of the small beds now have a low tunnel or a cold-frame top, this allows me to keep increasing my winter harvests, while reducing my summer harvests and reducing my workload.
I’ve also removed the top growth from my early potatoes and stacked them up, out of the way, so I finally have a clear path again!
Finally, I’ve tied in the broad beans, for the 5th time, I’ve never had broad beans grow so big!!
Planted this week
The last of the melons, the 3rd succession of Algarve French beans and the oca. I don’t really have space for oca this year, but I will plant a few just for seed stock for next year.
Here’s everything planted this year so far.
Waiting to be planted out
I now grow with four beds less than I did a couple of years ago, but I still sow the same amount, trying to be smarter about the way that I plant. It doesn’t always work out and I end up having to compost a few plants, but I like the challenge!
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
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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.
Thank you for all of this great information. Glad you are feeling better🌸