Thursday wasn't a particularly brilliant day for early May but after a rather cloudy morning we had some pleasant sunny spells in the afternoon. It remained dry all day with temperatures around average for the time of year.
I suspect compared with most gardeners I’m rather late sowing my cucumbers, courgettes pumpkins, and squashes but I find sowing them around now means they should be ready to plant out when all risk of a frost has disappeared. We usually have a decent crop so I've no reason to change my timing.
If our courgettes and squashes crop as normal we may have a bit of a glut. After I’d selected our varieties for this year we had the offer of some free seeds to trial from Marshalls. Well we couldn't turn an offer like that down so we've ended up with some extra seeds. It will be interesting to see how they compare with our usual varieties.
I wonder if this one will live up to its name? We’ll have to wait until October to find out.
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Later sown squashes etc rapidly catch up with earlier sown ones and seem much healthier because it is usually warmer. On the allotments some optimistic souls have already planted out without cover some quite large young squash plants and others have put out their runner bean plants, and they all look very sorry for themselves after the cool and gales this week.
ReplyDeleteI've seen some runner beans and courgettes planted out at the allotments a couple of weeks ago. They haven't survived the cold and gales. Doesn't pay to be too early.
DeleteI shall be sowing cucumbers tomorrow as well. I sowed some a while back, nurtured them for a while, planted them out at the allotment in a moment of complete madness and now they are dead. I do have some back ups in the little greenhouse, but I might need more.
ReplyDeleteVisited the plot Friday and some of our tougher plants looked to be struggling a bit to me. Our broad beans, cabbages and cauliflowers didn't look that happy. Potatoes were starting to push through so I'm hoping no more frosts.
DeleteWell you are ahead of me. Except my emergent first potatoes which have been well and truly frosted!
ReplyDeleteAt least they'll recover. Our earlies normally get a frosting but this year they have managed to keep their heads underground on frosty nights. Earthed them up Sunday just in case we have any more cold nights.
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