We've made the most of the fine June weather to do some catching up at the allotment. The last week has produced the warmest days of the year. In the end, Wednesday 09th June was the warmest day of the year, so far, with the temperature reaching 26.7°C or 80.1°F.
To date, it's been a very challenging gardening year. April was cold and very dry. May continued cold but very wet and only at the very end of May did the temperature return to more normal values for the time of year. Since the temperatures improved, we've had no rain to speak of and we are back to having to water crops at the allotment. Both April and May produced the coldest average monthly temperatures I've recorded over the last 12 years. In complete contrast, June's average temperature by the middle of the month is the warmest I've recorded.
We are still 3 to 4 weeks behind at the allotment. Last year at the beginning of June we were harvesting the first of our spring planted cabbages.
 |
| Regency cabbage harvested on 02 June 2020 |
This year and a couple of weeks further on into June we are still waiting for our first Regency cabbage to mature.
 |
| Photo taken 13 June 2021 |
As you can see from the photo above, this year's cabbages are getting there, but I think it will be another week before they are ready to harvest. Last year, by this time, we were also harvesting calabrese from our early brassica sowings.
At least our strawberries are ripening at the same time as last year. No doubt the warm weather over the last couple of weeks has helped them ripen.
A few weeks ago, we were concerned that our potatoes weren't making much effort to grow. Some had pushed a few tentative shoots through the ground but we were concerned that some could have rotted away in the wet May weather. Fortunately, that hasn't been the case and our potatoes are looking much healthier now.
Our runner beans and climbing French beans were planted out this week and this was probably 2 to 3 weeks later than normal, but this week we also manage to plant out our courgettes and winter squashes which is about the usual time for us.
The forecast is for cooler weather to return this week, or at least temperatures returning to more normal values for early June. There's also some rain in the forecast which would be most welcome as it would give us a break from watering.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting my blog and leaving a comment - it is great to know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted as soon as I spot them) Please do not follow links from any comments that appear to be spam - if in doubt ignore.