May's allotment diary
Weeding, planting out, and thinking about vertical growing
How are you? I hope you’re enjoying the joys of May and getting outside as much as possible. The may blossom is out, and the cow parsley, snowy white against the bright, almost effervescent green.
I’ve been busy on the allotment and in the garden, mostly trying to keep on top of the weeds! On my allotment plot they’ve gone wild after a rainy bank holiday weekend, but I managed to snatch an hour this morning to weed around the broad beans (getting taller by the day), and the peas and chard I’ve planted recently. I also covered the big area where I’ll be planting my squashes and pumpkins with a tarpaulin. Excluding light for a couple of weeks will hopefully get rid of the pesky weeds there.
As well as enjoying the last of my overwintered chard, I’m still eating plenty of rhubarb. We are giving rhubarb muffins a try this evening, for the village baking competition! This morning I harvested a load of leafy mugwort stems too, now hanging up in my office, drying for winter tea. Also on the plot I’ve got carrots and parsnips just coming through, and peas, planted with my daughter a couple of weeks ago. I can’t wait for fresh, delicious peas straight from the pod. My onions, garlic and broad beans are growing well too.
Here in Derbyshire, it’s nearly planting out time! Our average last frost date is around mid-May, so soon I’ll be able to get my tender veg out - tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins and squashes, runner beans, french beans and sweetcorn. I’ll miss them being in my garden office with me though - my office doubles as a greenhouse thanks to its big windows. It’s so lovely to look over, mid-zoom call, and check on my plant babies!
Today however the office is looking a little barer. It’s sunny with a gentle breeze, so I’ve moved my plants out on to the patio temporarily to enjoy some sun and ‘harden off’. This means getting tender plants used to outside conditions so it isn’t too much of a shock when they are planted out. Everything is getting huge, especially the runner beans: they’re already climbing up bamboo stakes. The courgettes, pumpkins and squash are huge too, and so ready to be out of their pots very soon. On sunny and warm days, it’s so tempting to think they’ll be ok planted out, but a cold night (which we’re getting plenty of) would definitely finish them off.
A big challenge for me when planting out is transporting plants from home to the planting site. I wheelbarrow them to the allotment, and use the car to get others to my parents’ garden, both of which are risky tactics! It’s so easy for young plants to get knocked over or squashed and never quite recover. One thing I have learned - and must try and actually remember this year - is don’t try and take too much at once, and don’t rush. Better to do smaller batches and keep them all safe.
Once your seedlings are in the ground and watered well, it’s so important to keep them protected from slugs, who will assume you’ve brought them a tasty snack. I use something called Strulch, a mulch made from wheat straw and iron minerals. Developed by Leicester University, it is meant to repel slugs and snails, protect the soil and deter weeds too. In my experience, it does work!
I also have a few plastic collars that I reuse each year, which help by physically protecting my newly planted seedlings from slugs - you can also get copper ones as an alternative to plastic. Another option is to plant a sacrificial plant nearby to try and tempt the slugs away from your seedlings.
Something important to think about now is how you will support your growing veg, especially climbers like beans. I learned from my dad to support broad beans with bamboo canes at the end of each of two rows of plants, with string wrapped around all four canes at two levels to support the plants as they grow. My runner beans and french beans, as well as sweet peas, will go up bamboo cane wigwams.
Since I have a LOT of pumpkins and squashes to plant out, which take up a lot of space, I have been thinking about supporting some of these to grow vertically too. Last year I tried using bamboo poles which weren’t really strong enough and fell over in the wind, so this year I’ve been gathering together bits of wood and old pieces of my daughter’s cot with the aim of creating a strong structure for the smaller squashes, and will leave the pumpkins to grow along the ground. I am getting very tempted to buy an arch to grow them over but I don’t really want to spend money. If anyone has any tips for vertical pumpkin growing please let me know!
A final note - if you haven’t sown any seeds yet, it’s not too late! Chard, radishes, peas, courgettes or pumpkin, tomato, lettuce - you could definitely get some seeds in now and they’d have time to grow and crop this season. Everything grows so much faster when the light levels are high and the soil is warmer. I’ve just put some more chard in as my overwintered chard from last year is starting to go to seed: this is a great space filler as things are harvested too.
Happy growing!