Summer Is Here

At last! Temperatures due to hit 21-26C daytimes, 13C overnight for the rest of the week. No rain due this week.We're going to be very busy in the garden for the next few weeks.

We spent the weekend catching up on some odd jobs. We tidied the front, cutting out the elderberry growing through the hedge and getting rid of the weeds on the drive. Loads more weeding out the back, especially the stepped beds that we're filling with pots this summer. We put the hanging basket brackets up by the front door (for flowers) and back door (for tumbling toms).

Last week I potted on about 40 tomatoes into 5in pots. Loads more are still in 3.5in pots. I didn't want to put them in the full size pots just yet as there isn't room in the greenhouse and was still too cold outside. We'll be doing a lot more potting on over the next couple of weeks.

We finally have some sweetcorn showing. Runner beans and french beans are shooting up in the greenhouse - I'm hoping to get them planted out this week. Mangetout is desperately in need of planting out. Still a poor show from peas, but a few newer ones are showing now. 

We tidied up the berry beds. Raspberry canes had shot up everywhere and hidden the strawberries. Now that the strawberries have light again, they have perked up. It looks like 12 strawberry plants, all flowering. The white strawberries from Wilkos are doing well. One has flowers, a couple more have sent out runners. I'll plant them out soon. I'll actually plant them closer than I did with the reds to help keep out the weeds. The gooseberries are packed with fruit. I still need to get underneath to remove the grass and weeds.

Not much action from the courgettes and squashes, so we resowed them last week. Pumpkins are doing very well though. We now have cucumbers showing too.

Brassicas are doing ok, but as always, some have cooked in the greenhouse. Seems that it doesn't take much to kill them off. I prefer to keep them in the greenhouse until they're big enough to survive pigeon attacks. However, I do have a gazebo frame without a cover, so will use that with fine netting to cover the brassicas. Hopefully that'll keep both the pigeons and the butterflies off the brassicas this year.

Salad veg are doing well. The salad tubs are really taking off now and we'll need to plant out the 4th tub in a couple of weeks.

Herbs are doing very well. The missus picked up a couple of herb plants to fill her planters as the herbs we'd sown were doing so poorly, but now we have loads of herbs. We'll make up a couple of large herb tubs soon.

Jobs for this week - fairly urgent things that need to be done before the weekend:
Set up wigwams and plant first beans
Set up mesh for mangetout to climb up
Finish digging onion bed and plant out remaining 160 onions
Finish digging over the brassicas bed, set up frame and netting, put brassicas seedlings inside
Set up posts for raspberry cane supports
Clear weeds from gooseberries
Pot on tomatoes
Plant out white strawberries
Clear and level more of the stepped beds ready for tomato pots