May Update

Haven't had much time to update this lately, but May has been quite a busy month both on and off the allotment. A lot of plants I started off at home are now ready for planting out. So as shown above, I now have Runner Beans planted out in two tee-pee arrangements, with sunken orange buckets under each one with holes drilled in the bottom to make it easy to water the roots. In between these will be the Courgette plants, one of which has so far been planted out.


Behind the runner beans is the large area which will be given over to all the different Squash and Pumpkins I'm growing this year. I've planted out about half of them so far, with the remainder either not big enough yet or having been resown after not germinating. The squash varieties are Festival, Sprinter (Butternut), Turks Turban, Futsu and Uchiki Kuri.


The French Beans have also been planted out and I've given them a mulch of grass clippings to keep the weeds down and aid water retention.


The Sweetcorn plants have also been planted out, next to the French Beans, in a grid arrangement to aid pollination. I'll give them a mulch too next time I cut the grass.


Last week I picked the first bagful of Broad Beans from the Autumn sown plants (shown on the left) and I also planted out the Spring sown Broad Bean plants (shown on the right) which are now big enough to go out.


The Potatoes are growing well and I've already given up trying to earth them up any more.


The Peas are also growing really well and the first few rows are already in flower. The next few rows are a couple of weeks behind and catching up fast.

This month I've also been picking quite a lot of Asparagus and Rhubarb. The Cherries, Strawberries and Raspberries have all produced 'green' fruits so far, so if we get a few weeks of sunshine they should start to ripen.