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Previous months in Andover, Hampshire (UK)
With Phil Cooper

2000

May

A small piece on myself:

I retired from the Army 15 years ago to join the computer industry (and am now working on an early retirement to spend the right amount of time in the garden).

I near Andover in the N Hampshire Downs and have a smallish garden at home (previously a farm yard) and have an allotment which is thin clay on chalk. The allotment slopes south and has no water supply (or other facilities except a bunch of very friendly gardeners).

I've been gardening organically for some 15 years (but built my first compost heap nearly 40 years ago - when that sort of thing was weird). I am the Chairman of our local organic gardening group and also a member of the local non-organic club.

I enjoy growing vegetables, on the allotment, and flowers in the garden. I have an unheated 8 x 12 lean to greenhouse and a well stocked shrub border (courtesy of the house's previous owners). I find that there is never enough time to "keep up" with the garden, only weekends and the occasional day off are available - I quite often am late (according to the manuals) but still win prizes at the non-organic garden show.

I'm a member of the HDRA's Heritage Seed Library and, in addition to growing the annual 6 lots of free seed, I'm a seed guardian for one variety of french bean (Xenia Field) and a tomato (Striped Cavern). I've also recently become hooked on potatoes and this year have 31 varieties - but apart from all this, I like to think of myself as normal!

Now for May:

The year to date in England has been mild with most Spring plants being early, however April has been WET. This has slowed down work in the garden (this bit is being typed during a shower).

The greenhouse is getting very full of plants ready to harden off as I grow most veg and flowers in modules. Ready for planting out in May will be a second batch of broad beans, onions (raised from seed), lettuce, basil, parsley and (for the first time) rocket; the Striped Cavern tomatoes are in 5 inch pots. Flowers, which won't go out till all chance of a frost has gone, include antirrhinums, african marigolds, dahlias, fuchsias, lobelia, pansies, petunias, geraniums and impatiens (the last 2 grown on from bought in seedlings - good value for money compared with raising those plants from seed).

To be sown in May:

In modules: Beetroot, French and runner beans, sweet corn, summer, autumn and winter cabbage, leeks, more lettuce (every 2 - 3 weeks); all should be ready to harden off and plant out by the end of the month.

In open ground: The potatoes that didn't get in because of the wet April (don't worry about the "late" planting; I left some until the last weekend in May last year and still had a good crop in September), broccoli, carrots, peas, wall flowers; I've given up on cauliflowers, somehow I don't seem to have the knack. I also have phacelia to sow, as green manure, in the beds that are not immediately occupied.

My ground is very hungry, and the 2 compost bins are almost empty already so I'm trying a couple of types of organic fertilizer this year - both based on chicken manure - whether this is truly "feeding the soil", I'm not sure. Everything (except the carrots) will get some, including the garlic planted in November. Oh, don't forget the weeding - if the weeds get a hold now it's an uphill struggle for the rest year.

June

May was another wet month (2.5" of rain in 2 days at Wentworth). But quite mild, only one minor frost which didn't even touch the newly emerged potato foliage. So, apart from not be able to get onto the land as much as normal (quite a good excuse, if required), the season is progressing well. The first batch of broad beans are nearly ready to pick and the potatoes, onions and shallots looking good. The weeds are also benefiting from the mild wet weather and hoeing is not very easy or successful, firstly the soil sticks to the hoe and secondly the weeds either reroot or more germinate. The plants raised in modules (runner and French beans, sweet corn and pumpkins) should be hardened off ready to plant out. The tomatoes and peppers for the greenhouse are now in 5" pots.

For the coming month, the module raised plants can be planned out. In this wet weather the slugs can be a major problem. I have protected plants with rings made from sections of plastic bottles in the past and this year I am going to try bran, which apparently kills the little darlings by dehydration.

The bedding plants can now be planted out, fuchsias, pansies, busy lizzies, African and French marigolds etc. I managed to pick up some dahlia cuttings from the local society at a plant sale, so they will go out and hopefully provide entries for the village show at the end of August. The hanging baskets and containers can also now move out of the greenhouse to allow the tomatoes and peppers to go in 12" rings on the gravel floor. In sunny weather the watering needs to be done twice a day, so Barbara has something to keep her out of mischief during the day!

Successional sowings of lettuce, beetroot, carrots, salad onions, peas, radish should be made - little and often (every 2 - weeks) means that the produce is fresh and if one batch succumbs to weather, pests or diseases then there should be another lot just behind.

July

June has departed and, wonder of wonders, it didn't rain quite so much; there were even a couple of hot days. The nett result is that everything, including the weeds, has grown a quite a pace.

So this month we should be able to reap the benefit of our labours by harvesting the crops sown and planted earlier. We should also reap the benefit of getting on top of the weeds earlier in the year but do keep running an occasional hoe across this surface especially after rain, this kills the weeds and provides a thin mulch of dry soil on the surface that will keep the moisture in. (I am assuming that the drier weather will continue!) If you didn't get control of the weeds earlier then make sure that you hand weed close to the plants, especially onions to avoid damaging the bulbs, and hoe the rest of the ground.

The garlic is looking well but I have found that it needs to be harvested as soon as the leaves start to yellow or it will quickly rot in the ground. In the greenhouse the tomatoes and peppers are doing well but need watering at least once a day when the sun appears. I use weak comfrey liquid or Maxicrop Tomato fertiliser at each watering. I have tried outdoor tomatoes but find that the blight arrives just as they are starting to produce ripe fruit.

The comfrey is about to be cut for the third time this year to make the liquid, but I always leave one or two stems to carry on flowering for the bees.

There is still time to sow/plant more French and runner beans, lettuce, peas, spring onions and beetroot and Chinese greens prefer to be planted at this time of year.

My small crop of strawberries have just been consumed, and now is the time to root runners. You can just let them root in the ground, but they will do better if you peg them in a 3 inch pot filled with good compost which has been sunk into the ground where they naturally lie. There is then minimum disturbance when you plant them out (and hence a better chance of a good first year crop). A peg can be made from a 6-inch length of coat hanger wire bent into a U shape.

This is the time of year for potato/tomato blight. The fungus, which causes the disease, usually starts in the south west of the country and moves east and north carried by aphids. The gardening press and local radio gardening programmes should give warning of where it currently is. Bordeaux mixture as a leaf spray is the only (just) acceptable organic preventative. The important thing to remember is that it is a preventative, it coats the leaves with copper which will stop the fungal spores taking root when they land on the plant. A spraying will last only about 2 weeks if there is no rain, so you may need to repeat the process, but don't waste time on the leaves which show the dreaded brown and yellow blotches. They should be removed to prevent the spread to other plants and, for potatoes, to stop the spores being washed down into the soil where they will go on to cause tuber blight which will prevent maincrop varieties being stored.

Another fun filled job is to remove any flower heads from your rhubarb and give it its annual feed of well-rotted farmyard manure; your reward will be more and juicier stems next year.

Here's hoping the good weather continues and all your weeds wither.

August

July was, in the South of England relatively dry and warm; there were some areas which received very heavy rainfall over a short period but I luckily missed that. The result was the opportunity to hoe weeds which, for the first time this year, stayed dead! Broad beans continued to be harvested but the second crop was low due, I think, to the cool wet period when pollination should have occurred. Salad crops have done well as have the onions where I could water them. I've harvested the garlic, which was the best crop to date, and the early potatoes (planted late) are producing reasonable yields. The runner, dwarf and climbing French beans are coming on whilst a fourth sowing of carrots has again failed; I can't seem to keep them either warm enough at the beginning of the year or moist enough now. In the cold greenhouse, tomatoes are setting their third trusses and a couple of varieties of chili peppers are starting to set fruit.

This month the French and runner beans, tomatoes, onions, second early potatoes and more salad crops should be ready for harvest. It's the village show on the 19th so I'm hoping some of the flowers will be in a good state by then. My dahlias went a little late but they may just make it and my herbaceous and shrub beds usually produces enough to win a prize or two.

So this month it's harvesting and continuing sowing the salad crop (including winter lettuce) and Chinese greens, I'll try again with some early carrots. Just in case we do have some hot weather, remember that lettuce will not germinate if the temperature is much over 20 degrees centigrade; sowing in the evening or a cool shed solves the problems and as soon as germination takes place they can come out into the heat. I will be sowing phacellia as a green manure catch crop where there potatoes and onions are cleared and there's still time to plant out leeks and late winter greens.

Here's hoping your harvesting goes well.

September

Autumn is on the horizon and the first week of September threatens to bring low evening temperatures and strong winds. But before summer disappears altogether, a brief recap on August.

The second early potatoes seem to have stopped at the first early size (the egg size that the June crop has when you lift the first root). Worrying that this might be the case for the maincrop, I looked at a couple of roots and the crop seems as normal. The long cool wet period might have something to do with it. The village produce show went well, the late season meant that such things as broad beans and peas were still in good condition at the end of August as were several flowers that would have been finished in a normal year.

This month we can look forward to harvesting the remainder of the potatoes (late maincrop can stay until October but be prepared to share your harvest with the slugs). Any onions should be lifted as soon as possible or they will start to grow again. Runner beans should continue to deliver as should climbing French beans (better value in my view than the dwarf varieties which have a shorter cropping period, lower yield and are more fiddly to pick). The sweet corn is now coming into its own. The tomatoes in the greenhouse will continue into October (or beyond with heat) but those outside which have avoided the blight will not ripen once the temperatures drop around the middle of the month. Now's the time to start looking out those recipes for green tomatoes.

As my land is very thin it needs protection over winter to prevent leaching (the washing out of nutrients by winter rains). I use green manures as soon as the crops are cleared. It's still not too late to sow mustard, phacelia or winter tares and now is the time to sow field beans and grazing rye (but only sow grazing rye if you're prepared for the hard work involved in digging it in). Overwintering onions can be sown or sets planted and garlic can be planted at the end of the month. Mine really benefited from an early start last year and a good dose of pelleted chicken manure. Rocket and spinach can also be sown.

Here's hoping the good weather stays as long as possible so that you can enjoy what's left of the summer in the garden.

October

Several misty mornings with a definite cool feeling and the fact that it's no longer daylight at 6am force me to accept that Autumn is now here (that and a birthday the other day).

The season for me is ending well. My organic gardening group (see http://www.hhdra.ic24.net) produced 2 displays at local shows to demonstrate that not only are organic gardeners normal but that we can produce attractive looking food. The first consisted of peppers and members of the onion family and the second mainly of potatoes (75 varieties), both displays attracted much interest and some envy from a few visitors from Australia and South Africa who don't have quite the selection of potatoes available here in Europe.

The sweet corn has done particularly well, but unfortunately does not stay at its prime for long - the freezer is now well filled.

So what needs our attention in October?

Any remaining potatoes need lifting, although one theory on Pink Fir Apple is that it stores well in the ground; its tendency to spread much more than other varieties means that finding all the tubers is even more difficult after the haulms have died down. Carrots should also be lifted, especially if your slugs have had such a successful season as mine. With other root crops it's a question of taste, the theory that parsnips taste better after a frost should be weighed against the losses from the slugs and other pests (rabbits, pheasants and partridge for example). Luckily my leeks don't seem to attract pests and, again depending on variety, these can be harvested from now through to spring next year. Those who can grow brassicas can (depending on the variety) start picking Brussels Sprouts whilst those with autumn cabbages and cauliflowers can enjoy the the results of the hard work in keeping down the weeds around them earlier in the season.

At the other end of the chain, there's still time to plant garlic, over wintering onions and those who want the earliest of the peas can sow round seeded varieties such as Feltham First, Meteor and Pilot. The over wintering green manures field beans and grazing rye need to be sown now if they are to become established before the frosts.

In the greenhouse the tomatoes and peppers continue to crop but I spotted the odd brown leaf that looks like blight the other day, I'm hoping that it either wasn't blight or that I removed it in time to prevent the disease from spreading - I should know soon as blight knocks tomato plants over in a matter of days.

The other day our group had a talk on herbs and now is the time to pot up some of those growing in the garden to bring indoors or into the conservatory for cropping through the winter, chives, mint and sage seem to respond well to this treatment, cutting down the tops of the first 2 to ensure fresh tasty leaves.

Good gardening for what's left of the season.

November

Age must be taking its toll as I am now contemplating the rest of autumn and the early winter months with some relish. The reason being that there is much less work to do and I feel that after a reasonably busy season it is time to enjoy a period of relative quiet, assuming that you don't indulge in strenuous activities like double digging. So what happened in October?

The potatoes and carrots were safely gathered in (having paid my tithe to the slugs) and some grazing rye sowed as green manure. The tomatoes still are producing in the greenhouse but the leaves are browning (luckily it wasn't blight) from the bottom and are being removed as their purpose in life is ended.

For November in the garden it's the last call for planting garlic, round seeded peas (under cloches which help at this time of year) Aquadulce broad beans and, their close relative, field beans as a green manure. Check your sprouts to make sure they are firmly anchored for the winter winds, earthing them up helps keep them upright. Cabbages and broccoli should be short enough to avoid the problem. Annual herbs and biennials such as parsley at the end of their second year can be removed now.

In the flower garden the dahlia tubers will be lifted when the first frost touches them, you can do the same with runner bean roots - restarting them next year will result in an earlier crop than from seed. This doesn't work for French beans, which are annuals. Tender perennials such as fuchsias and pelargoniums can be lifted and kept in a frost-free place, remove most of the top first.

On the tidying up front runner bean supports should be removed now, a tip to help bamboo canes last longer is to give them a wipe over with linseed oil when they have dried off, making sure that the end that goes in the ground gets a good coating. Greenhouses need a good clear out (but the tomatoes are a bit of a problem to work round). A layer of bubble insulation will keep out several degrees of frost for a cold house and save money if you use heating.

The best bit of this time of the year is studying the seed catalogues, there are plenty around and the selection in them is much wider than that available at your local garden centre. Many seed merchants are now offering a wide selection of potato varieties but, before you spend lots of money (and postage) on having delivered to you door, the widest range can be found at local Potato Days. The HDRA's Jackie Gear started the idea at Ryton around 8 years ago and now there will be at least 5 next year. The events are centred round the idea of being able to buy individual tubers of over 100 varieties (so you can try lots until you find the one(s) for you). But there are talks by experts, cookery demonstrations and the opportunity to pick up advice and opinions from other keen gardeners. You can find details of these events (and UK sources of organic seeds) at http://www.hhdra.ic24.net.

Good gardening (however much effort you put into it) for November.

December

Last month I said I was looking forward to a restful period but the November weather has made even those who wanted to get out on their gardens better advised not to.

By accident I managed to dispose of a large number of slugs. They were in was that one of my beds which had had potatoes in and had been covered with carpet for the winter; on pealing back the carpet to check the state of the soil, I found large numbers of keel slugs on the underside of the carpet. Turning it over (good exercise) allowed me to perform a Hampshire variant of a rain dance (another good piece of exercise) and send most of them to their happy hunting ground. I don't know whether it was the very wet conditions that caused this or that the ground was newly dug over when I covered it (after lifting the spuds) or just that the beds had an abundance of slugs left over from feasting on my spuds. I looked under a couple of other carpets with no similar results - has anyone else spotted this phenomenon?

I also spotted the odd root of potatoes not lifted yet, most had been well attended by slugs, the two roots of Desiree were untouched by the little darlings, so there is a resistant variety in my book!

We (the United Kingdom) have had our wettest autumn since records began (17??). Luckily the floods have subsided but even those lucky enough to have avoided them (like myself) are left with very very wet gardens.

The advice is therefore don't go on your soil. I am managing to get between the raised beds to lift the odd parsnip and leek (and carpet) but that's about it. If you don't have raised beds but need to harvest crops, put down some boards to stand on. Even lawns are too wet to attempt leaf clearance.

So what is there to do (having studied the seed catalogues as advised last month)?

Complete the seed order; you should have the seeds back before Christmas so that the onions can be sown on Boxing Day (indoors of course), this is only for those wanting to grow large onions suitable for entering in the village show.

Otherwise it's an excellent time to check the tools, clean off the soil, lightly oil any metal (with mineral oil) and wood (with linseed oil, olive oil is a good but expensive alternative if you only have the odd tools and the cook is not watching) and look to the state of any petrol driven tools - if you're not up to servicing them yourself, there are plenty of local firms looking for work at this time of year. Another useful bit of maintenance is on pots, seed trays and modules; a quick soak will remove the old compost together with most of the diseases it holds (a bit of washing up liquid helps, as does the use of hot water). My shed, which houses these also acts as a home for mice in the winter, moving the pots reveals the hidden nest(s) and reduces the problem slightly.

Keep looking at the stored fruit, vegetables and flowers to check for disease. Remove diseased fruit and veg and sulphur is good to protect flowers.

When the ground dries a little (and is not frosted) bare rooted fruit trees and bushes can be planted, they are much cheaper than container grown plants.

It's also time to start thinking about feeding the birds (and providing water when the frosts start). A small kindness to them now should mean that they will be back in the good weather to keep down the pests.

May the rest of your year be drier and you have a very enjoyable Christmas.

2001

January

As 2000 ended in the coldest weather for a long time in the south of England, we can only hope that the results will be a diminished selection/quantity of pests and diseases in 2001. One theory I have just heard is that it is not so much the low temperature that kills the overwintering insects but the fact that the birds hunt them out from their nooks and crannies on trees and bushes when the snow and ice stops them getting other food.

The end of the year was, as I suggested last month, a period of relative inactivity, only the sowing of onions in a heated propagator on the study window and the completing of seed orders to break the serenity.

The ground remained very wet so the digging up of the last of my poor crop of carrots and parsnips was all that I could manage (even if I had wanted to do more!).

January starts another year and although most activities will be very much governed by the weather there are few things that should be considered.

The first is to keep checking the overwintering plants and harvested fruit and veg, as before. My greenhouse has a small thermostatically controlled electric heater to keep the temperature just above freezing at this time of year, so a check on the max/min thermometer is all that is necessary to check that all is well temperaturewise.

I will be setting up my home made propagator during the month, as it will be put into use early in February. It consists of a wooden frame lined with 2 inch thick expanded polystyrene; this is covered in polythene and filled to within 2 inches of the top with a 4-inch layer of damp sand. Buried halfway in the sand is soil warming cable and a rod thermostat. The top is a wire frame which supports more polythene as a cover. I have had it for many a long year but it would cost around 50 pounds to make and is 2ft x 4ft (that makes it slightly cheaper than commercial versions!). I can supply plans if anyone is interested.

Having just sown some onions, leeks could be receive similar treatment at the end of this month and peas (early round seeded such as Meteor) could be sown in pots ready to be planted out next month under cloches. Another way to sow is in 4 inch guttering. The resulting plants can then be slid out with the soil. These are germinated at bench level and then placed on the greenhouse floor, with a bated mouse trap!

If you do plan to plant out or sow under cloches, do remember to put them out as soon as you can, they will then serve to warm the soil. This is just as, if not more, important than the protection they give when the plants or sown/planted out.

At the end of the month broad beans (such as Aquadulce) can be sown in modules, these may well catch up the autumn sown ones.

If you have a heated greenhouse, aubergines and peppers can be sown at the end of the month; the latter certainly benefit from the long growing season.

Outdoors rhubarb and bare rooted fruit trees can be planted when the grown is not frozen, cover the ground with some form of much such as straw or strawy manure to keep off the worst of the frosts.

The end of this month also sees the first of the England and Scotland's Potato Days (see last month's notes). Once bought the seed should be chitted, that is placed rose end upwards in a cool well lit place so that stocky sprouts grow, this is particularly helpful for getting really early crops. If you have a pond with fish, make a hole in the ice by placing a saucepan of boiling water on it (hitting the ice to break it can harm the fish). If you grown flowers, some of those requiring long seasons can be sown this month, canna lilies and begonia semperflorens are examples, but, again you'll need some warmth to keep them once they germinate. Sweet peas, on the other hand, only require a low temperature (around 4 degrees C) to germinate and grow on.

So a Happy New Year to all and may 2001 be a bountiful season!

March

Firstly, my apologies for not contributing last month. A nasty touch of flu took me out of commission for the last week in January and since then I have been operating at less than full strength.

The last 2 months in the UK have been generally wet but relatively mild. There have been of few cold snaps but they have been relatively short so gardening conditions are far from ideal.

I did manage to get my potato tubers and they are now chitting on the window ledge of a cool spare bedroom. My first batch of onion seedlings germinated well but only 3 are currently surviving after being potted on into peat free compost. A recent article in "Gardening Which?" concluded that, although peat free composts were equal to peat based versions for growing plants on all the seed composts tested produced poor results - sadly I have to confirm this. The second batch are now doing reasonably well in peat based general-purpose compost.

Other sowings included broad beans, which I chitted in a jar (rinsing then with fresh water twice daily) because they were beyond the "sow by" date on the packet; I got 90% success, they are now in modules in the cool greenhouse (there is an electric heater which is set to keep the temperature above freezing) about to emerge.

Other successful sowings in a small electric propagator in the spare bedroom are peppers, coleus and basil. I did try leeks this way but only one emerged from half a packet - the temperature may have been too high. Also sown but not yet emerged in the spare bedroom are beetroot, lettuce and spring onions in modules.

Now for March! It is probably easier to give a list of what not to sow as this is a hectic month. As I have mentioned before I sow most of my veg in modules and achieve a much higher success rate that way, this year with the wet condition of the soil, I doubt whether any outdoor sowings are worthwhile until the weather improves and the ground dries out.

On the vegetable front this is the time for sowing, globe artichokes, aubergines, broad beans, beetroot, brussels sprouts, summer cabbage, carrots (round or stump rooted), summer cauliflower, celery, indoor cucumbers, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsnips, early peas, peppers, radish and indoor tomatoes. Outdoor early potatoes and the broad beans should be planted towards the end of the month in the south, I'm also going to try Jerusalem artichokes. Most bedding plants can be sown and its time that dahlia, fuchsia, pelargonium and chrysanthemum cuttings can be taken.

I'm trying some potatoes in home made ring culture type pots in the cool greenhouse, the rings or pots over 12 inches can be bought but I make mine from some old roofing felt. For those lucky enough to have polytunnels, you need read no further as you should be able to plant now but keep the fleece ready for those frosty nights. A strip 15 inches wide by 40 inches is stapled (ordinary office staples) into a 12-inch diameter tube; three will be a 3 - 4 overlap which allows at least 2 rows of staples for strength. My greenhouse has a gravel bed on which I place the rings with 3 or 4 sheets of newspaper in the bottom (don't fold the sheets, let them rise up the sides, but make sure the base is covered to keep the compost in). A 3-inch layer of garden compost goes in followed by 3 potato tubers and a further 3-inch of compost or garden soil with chicken manure pellets. As the shoots reach 3 inches high top up with soil/compost to leave them just showing, continue until the ring is 1 inch from the top of the ring (to allow for watering). This should give early potatoes in June. Taller rings/pots could be used but my object is to get new potatoes as early as possible not large tubers/quantities which will take longer.

One final point, now is a good time to buy those items that others may leave to the last minute. Fleece, garden canes and Bordeaux mixture are good examples of items that tend to become in short supply the moment the sun starts shining and everyone wants to get into the garden. Have a good (but busy) month and I hope things dry out!

April

Last month I said that the weather had been wet but mainly mild and that the land was too wet to work on. For this month's report, see last month's!!

A very frustrating time on the vegetable (and flower) plot altogether, even in the greenhouse things are not moving very much. I have an electric heater set to keep the temperature above freezing and night temps have been in that region on several occasions but days have been dull and temps have not been particularly high so the plants in modules, broad beans, onions, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, beetroot and even some parsnips have barely moved; the
exception is lettuce which is making steady progress.

The tomatoes, peppers, basil and parsley that I raised on the spare bedroom window ledge are still indoors. As yet no potatoes in the allotment!

But are we down hearted? (e-mail answers to Gavin please). What we have to
look forward to is April. This is the time of year when it is probably easier to list what should not be sown or planted than to say what should be as almost everything wants to grow no matter how brutal you are with it.

But here's an outline of the work that could keep you on the plot all month.
Sow indoors (an asterisk means you can also sow directly outdoors):

• Aubergine (mine have just germinated after almost a month!)

• beetroot*

• broad beans*

• Brussels sprouts*

• calabrese

• cauliflower*

• carrots*

• celery

• cucumber

• most herbs

• kale*

• kohl rabi*

• leeks*

• lettuce*

• marrows*

• onions*

• pumpkins

• spinach*

• summer cabbage*

• tomatoes and

• turnips*

From the middle of the month, French beans, runner beans, courgettes, marrows
and sweet corn. Its also an ideal time to propagate herbs from cuttings, mint as
root or stem cuttings(which I rooted last month in water), horseradish (root
cuttings), chives (division), oregano (division) and comfrey (root).

Outdoors, first and second early potatoes go in at the beginning of the month and maincrop towards the end; each tuber will get a forkful of farm yard manure at the bottom of the trench and a half handful of chicken manure pellets in the soils above them. Spring onions, peas, shallots and onion sets plus the hardened off plants from the greenhouse can go in now.

It's time to dig in green manures especially winter rye, which if left, will become a major task. I find it helps to cut the taller crops down with a strimmer or (better) a rotary mover before digging in.

On the flower front, the half hardy annuals should be pricked out now, hardy
annuals can be sown indoors or out and cuttings taken of fuchsias, chrysanths and dahlias (although in my greenhouse the overwintering latter are not showing too many signs of providing cutting material).

That's enough to fill the odd weekend but it's a sensible time to stock up on provisions for next month, hanging baskets and so on are quickly snapped up on sunny weekends from the middle of the month onwards.

Here's wishing you (again) a drier month ahead and success in the
garden.

July

In my absence (work load and a failed computer) for 2 months the allotment and garden have not stood still! The late cold wet weather is still having an effect in that crops are behind where they were last year, even given the wet "summer" of 2000.

My main failure to date has been sweet corn, almost none germinated using my normal method of raising them in compost in old drink cups in the cold greenhouse during May, they almost all rotted off. The broad beans, despite starting off well in modules in the greenhouse objected to the cold wet ground on the allotment and produced only the odd pod. To counter that my own saved dwarf and climbing French bean seeds germinated well (98%) and are looking good. The potatoes, some of which were planted in very wet ground in early April, are doing quite well with only one or two failing to emerge. The earlies are now flowering but I'm not sure when they will be ready. June has been generally good with an extremely hot week followed by a wet cold one and now about normal. The weeds seems to be enjoying it as my absence from the allotment for just two weeks meant hard work with the hoe and strimmer on the surrounding paths. In the greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are doing well, if a little late, and a bumper selection of herbs raised from seed and cuttings to raise cash at a plant sale make the work seem worth while (as does the first portion ofstrawberries, but credit there must go to Barbara as that is her part of the patch). The flowers for cutting, sweet peas, African marigolds, antirrhinums and dahlias are also ok but a little late.

So to July. The lack of sweet corn means that I have no crops to plant in 3 of my 15ft by 4ft beds. They will be sown with phacellia and red clover as green manure. I will also be setting a bed down to wild/annual flowers including teasels, pot marigold, poppies and borage, which will attract more wild life and hopefully become self seeding.

Other activities for July are the continued weeding, harvesting and sowing of salad crops such as lettuce, spring onions and rocket. As the French and runner beans and courgettes start to crop they will need regular harvesting to keep them cropping. As soon as garlic leaves go yellow it is time to lift and dry them off; my experience is that within a week of the foliage going completely yellow the bulbs can start to rot.

A sowing of early peas will produce a crop in the autumn. Other crops that could be sown now include Chinese cabbage and other oriental greens, kale, spring cabbage, endive, Florence fennel, kohl rabi and Swiss chard.

And just when you though everything was going well, it's time to keep a watch out for blight. At the first hint (local radio garden programmes usually give warnings when it's due in your area), spray outdoor tomatoes and potato haulms with a Bordeaux mixture every fortnight or after heavy rain. If foliage starts to turn yellow or brown, remove and burn or bag immediately.

May July go well and the blight stay away!

Phil

September

August has been a "good" month in the South of England. The temperatures have mostly been those we should expect in a proper summer. One result of this was that the annual show had a bumper crop of entries - our fears had been that the poor weather earlier in the year would have spoiled things.

Many items were still around in the middle of the month, such as broad beans, that should have been on their last legs. That was the good news, the bad was that the earlier poor weather resulted in my having a very poor crop of first and second early potatoes (except Winston).

The tomatoes, peppers and aubergines are doing well in the greenhouse and the French (dwarf and climbing) and runner beans, cucumbers, lettuce and cabbage are benefiting from the tender loving care they get in my small back garden. My late sowing of carrots also shows promise (the first of 4 sowings this year to do so), the slugs decided that the turnips were too good to miss. The bed of annuals that will self-seed for next year (calendula, borage, etc) are coming on well, as is the green manure (red clover and phacelia).

Now for September, life is slowing down on the sowing and planting front with only late salad crops such as rocket, lettuce and chicory being suitable to sow now (an exception are overwintering onions) and planting out spring cabbage.
Harvesting is the main activity and clearing the grown to provide space for overwintering green manures such as rye and (later) field beans. Seeds can also be collected at this time of year from most plants (avoid F1 hybrids that will not come true and the promiscuous vegetables such as carrots and parsnips). If you want advice on seed collecting, the HDRA is running a course in early September - see their website at www.hdra.org.uk - if it's as good as the one I attended 3 years ago it will be excellent.

Here's hoping the good weather stays as long as possible so that you can enjoy what's left of the summer in the garden.

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Last Updated 17 May, 2002

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