My Garden

There'll be no veg gardening for me this weekend - or for the next few days for that matter. I'll be at the Chelsea Flower Show until Tuesday afternoon,so won't be getting my fingers dirty at all for four days.

Look at the RHS Online at the shows blogs to see how I get on at Chelsea

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Another atypical early May weekend got me out of bed early Saturday morning to start the rounds of watering. By seven o’clock the hose was busy giving relief to gasping plants.

All the young plants in the lean-to frame needed looking at, so I got out my faithful flat Tubtrug, filled it with water and gave everything a good soak. This method not only ensures the compost is thoroughly moist, but gives me the opportunity to pick up each plant and give it the once over. A couple of the peppers had started to develop greenfly, so these were squashed before the plants had their much-needed soak. As everything is growing furiously it also gives me the opportunity to re-space everything, but this meant a few things had to come out to make enough space. The peas had already had a period of hardening off as Clare was going to plant them at the allotment on Sunday (I wasn’t going as I had the excuse of watching the last day of the Premiership on telly!)

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A word from the wise (or at least someone who nearly got his fingers (or his plants) burnt - literally!): don't get caught out by this spell of hot weather like I nearly did.

I got up early yesterday morning as I had to go to RHS Garden Wisley. I'd opened the lean-to frame and the greenhouse to let in some air, but as the frame contains a lot of newly potted seedlings I wanted to ensure they didn't get too cold or blasted by wind - so only opened the glass doors a tad. I didn't get back from Wisley until late and it was too dark to see anything much in the garden. I checked everything early this morning and lots of the young plants were visibly panting for water. I had a look at the max/min thermometer and it registered a high of 39C yesterday!
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There’s only one thing that I like more than the weekends – that’s a three-day weekend, commonly called a Bank Holiday! And what a wonderful one it was too.
Saturday was spent doing general ‘life’ things to get them out of the way, so it freed up the other two days.

I did get time to go down to the allotment. The grass paths were in desperate need of mowing, so I quickly whizzed around and got them looking decent. Next job was to earth up the spuds, which have started to show through. Then finally put up some supports for the peas, which Clare planted out and devise something that Heath Robinson (who’s correct name, apparently, is William Heath Robinson) would be proud of, involving mesh, string and metal pegs to keep off the damn pigeons.
During Sunday morning and early afternoon I was busy in the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire studios on Dougan Does Gardening answering questions. We had a few veggie ones, including: was it too late to sow runner beans – well, no, it’s possibly a bit early; how to stop leeks bolting – it wasn’t really bolting in the true sense of the word, it was how to stop leeks going to seed now, and that’s easy – lift them and eat them!; why were tomatoes and chillies producing brown, shrivelled leaves – it turns out they had been planted outside (already) on a very cold, exposed balcony!
When I returned home there was some general gardening to do, lead by Clare who had been busily hacking back the holly

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I'm really sorry about all the rain we've had over the last couple of days - I think it's my fault.

You see, I planted out some broad beans and some other bits and bobs on the allotment on Monday, but forgot to take the watering can. I went back on Tuesday and gave everything a thorough watering to settle them into their new home. Within about 45 minutes of finishing, the heavens opened and it hasn't really stopped since. So I apologise

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