The gardening week (May - Week 2, 2024)
Back planting again!
It feels so good
It feels so good to be back planting again and I have a lot of planting to do at this time of year. We try to do the kitchen garden and Debbie’s plot first, then my plot and finally the polytunnel. However, unlike many gardeners I used to find April and May quite hard work. On my allotment site I’m the only person who really grows all year round and so as I enviously walk around the site - on the good plots - all I see is pristine, empty beds, waiting for their summer crops, their plot owners having had months of leisurely time to prepare. My plot however is always fully planted, so almost every bed needs to be cleared, the debris chopped up and composted, the beds weeded, watered and reconditioned with fresh compost before I can plant.
That process adds a lot of work and it’s at a time when the weather is perfect for all of my other hobbies as well as a lot of DIY projects. It used to be too much, by the end of May I was exhausted. So a couple of years ago I decided that in April and May - and September/October - I would put the allotment first, avoid burnout and just accept that I can’t do everything. I’d still cycle/hike etc but only if I was ahead on the plot.
I now take a fairly leisurely approach, replanting just two or three beds a week, all through April and May. This keeps my harvest volumes strong all through the hungry gap, my energy levels high and most importantly my enthusiasm for gardening doesn’t take a dip.
I know a lot of other gardeners who get a bit burnt out too, especially over summer, but Debbie and I take it easy in summer, easier than most because we mainly eat fresh food and therefore we don’t need to spend lovely summer days preserving and maybe as much as 50% of our gardens is planted for autumn, winter and spring harvests, which need little attention.
Gardening problems this week
Each week I will highlight any problems I’m having:
I have three tubs of cucumbers in the greenhouse, all growing in the same compost, the plants come from two successions and the same seeds. The furthest on plants are 6ft high and lush with growth. All the plants are Mini Munch, which is - supposedly - all female, but all of the plants are covered with male flowers. The furthest on plant has maybe 10 actual cucumbers on it, but their growth has stalled at about 1 inch. The younger plants have nowhere near as much growth, but their cucumbers are growing away quite happily. What triggers a cucumber to grow, that varies between these plants, who knows?
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.
I’m always being asked how we get through such big harvests and what recipes we eat. The first question is easy, we eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg and two of our daughters live close by and we feed their families too. In the hungry gap we feed a few of our friends who struggle to grow enough food themselves and 2-3 nights a week we feed guests.
Recipes are more of a challenge. My diet is very simple. I basically eat fresh fruit for snacks, in summer I have a fruit salad with fresh cream for supper. For my lunch I have one of my big salad boxes, often with eggs and cheese and a few grapes. For my evening meal I typically have meat and ten veg, i.e. a big plate full of steamed veg with a small portion of meat (local salt marsh lamb, Scottish beef, organic chicken etc) sometimes a full roast meal. In winter I eat about 30 types of fruit and veg each week, in summer more like 40, excluding herbs.
Debbie eats a much more adventurous diet and we entertain a lot, so she makes a lot of meals for others. Her approach though is to invent meals that use what we’ve harvested that week, so she often doesn’t really follow specific recipes, she just wings it. I do try and grow the mix of veg each week that allows her to make the basic recipes that she likes though.
The end result is that I’ve struggled to find the time to document all of the myriad recipes that she makes, beyond this outline list, which I’m gradually working on.
Where I’ve done a better job is preserves, because here we do generally follow well know recipes.
For more details of the recipe books go here
For a list of the recipes go here
For a list of the batches go 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 now that I’m clearing beds, I’m also clearing slugs and snails too. Lots of them are hiding in lettuces and cabbages for example. After clearing a bed I always have to give it a good water and that brings them out too. I’ve given the beds a spring dose of nematodes too and that’s knocked the slugs back a bit. Finally I will be mulching some of the beds with Strulch and that did a great job of deterring slugs and sails last year.
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.
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. I don’t use a fine net over my brassicas because 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).
Cut worms are around for most of the year, but they are a particular challenge in spring and autumn, when there are lots of young plants around. I find they are a particular issue with no-dig gardening, because they are never brought to the surface for the birds to hunt. Fortunately the same Fruit and Veg Protection nematode kills cut worms.
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.
For more on pests see my growing guides and this chapter of my eBook.
First harvests of 2024
If you have any first harvests earlier than mine, or in addition to mine, I’d love to hear about them, the varieties, timings and growing conditions, but only if you are in the UK! I can’t ‘compete’ with California and Texas, for example!
This week I had quite a few firsts, the most interesting of which were the low tunnel peas and the polytunnel strawberries and beetroot. The peas arrived 3 weeks earlier in the heated greenhouse, as did the strawberries and that gave me a harvest value of an extra £30, which essentially covered the heating costs in April and that’s without counting the harvest value of the potatoes and courgettes and everything that’s still to come.
I was hoping that heating the greenhouse would pay for itself and so far it looks like it will cover its costs many times over.
Spring growing 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.
Sowings for May
Here’s my new sowing guide for May, as always, significantly updated since the preview that I did last month. You can find my database for May here too.
Sowings for the week
No sowings this week, as I like to take a week off to relax and because the greenhouse is full and I have no space for any more seedlings right now.
Here’s everything sown to date, in more detail.
Not germinated yet
Just the potatoes and the Centercut squash, although lots of the potatoes are also up now and we have plenty to harvest.
Germinated this week
A lot germinated this week, although the strawberries didn’t germinate, but the runners showed their first sign of life! Not all is rosy though, germination of the Sprite French beans was poor and also only 50% of the Purslane germinated, although I multi-sowed the modules, so I might haves spares to prick out.
This year looks frustratingly warm in May and I could probably have planted my tender crops out 3 weeks earlier than usual, but now I have to wait patiently for these late sown seedlings to grow.
Pricked out
Nothing this week.
Potted on this week
Nothing this week and thank goodness, because the greenhouse is crammed full.
Greenhouse progress
I’ve now cleared all of the hardy veg out of the greenhouse and some of the tomatoes and early melons are in the polytunnel adapting to the slightly cooler nights, ready for planting next week.
The heater is no longer needed at night, but I leave it on - controlled by its thermostat - just in case.
I will soon start to gradually clear the greenhouse out, creating more leisure space in the greenhouse and decorating the patios with tomatoes and peppers. I want to compare growing on the sunny, sheltered patio, with growing in the greenhouse this year. I’m hoping outside wins, because greenhouses get hot and hard to manage in summer.
Polytunnel progress
The polytunnel is a vibrant mess at this time of year, but it won’t last for long. Right now I have huge calabrese plants pumping out beautiful flower heads, masses of beetroot and lots of scrappy old potatoes, lettuces and Asian greens. All of these will soon be harvested and order will be restored as I replant.
Planted this week
It’s been another very busy planting week! The kitchen garden beds are all full now and all of the over-wintered brassicas have gone. This is important because left any longer they always get cabbage aphid, which love the new growth and flowers.
I left the allotment kalettes a little too long and cabbage aphid had moved in there, so I need to watch the adjacent red cabbages, because cabbage aphid love the growing tips of young cabbages, I’ve removed the covers so I can keep an eye on them!
You can see below that this year I’ve planted some Yacon tubers in containers, just as I do with potatoes. I’m hoping to extend the season for my Yacon harvest this year and also grow some smaller tubers, although I’m also growing a lot in the ground.
Here’s everything planted this year so far.
Waiting to be planted out
I’ve got loads of plants that are now ready for planting, but they are in big pots and are happy - for now - in the greenhouse, but the next 3 weeks will keep me busy planting!
I feel very relaxed this year though, because the greenhouse courgettes, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes are very well established and fruiting well, so I’m in no rush. I just wish I knew where to plant those summer leeks!
You can see all of the details here, note the links to growing guides have been added.
Sowing’s for next week
I’m back sowing again next week and some of these are quite important, especially the winter cabbages and carrots and the main crop beans. Although my outdoor lettuces are slow this year, so I might need to delay this succession of lettuces by a couple of weeks.
I’m more relaxed about my winter carrots this year, knowing that my summer/autumn carrots have germinated well. I’m planning to grow salad carrots for autumn and winter in containers this year in June as a hedge against the slug problems I had last year.
You can find all of the details for May here, make sure to look at the notes section, and the details of where I’m sowing and where I’m planting etc.
Growing guides for May
This link takes you to all of my monthly guides, where you can find a lot more than just my growing guides. I particularly like the list of videos produced in the relevant month in years gone by. Click here for May’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.
Downloadable resources
Last year I experimented with providing downloadable versions of my database, I’ve updated these below with the latest information. Please feel free to give me feedback on these.
For even more details and a more up to date list (I’m always tweaking things and fixing mistakes) check out my live data for March, April and May.
Start planning for June
Coming soon!
Weekly Harvest
Here’s last week’s harvest. Tomatoes still from the supermarket, but it won’t be long now!
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
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