Late June 2023, so dry and no dig is helping!
Late June, often the weather changes around this time of solstice. I hope so, after five weeks without rain for most of us. Find more details in my recent newsletter, do subscribe if you have not already.
Nonetheless, temperatures will stay warm, including at night. This helps growth to continue if roots can access moisture. That is the limiting factor for many of us.
If you can, keep watering these vegetables that need it most, see my short video. It’s best to continue watering as though no rain is forecast, because sometimes it does not happen and your plants suffer. But if it then does rain, moisture is pushed further down. A reserve for the coming weeks. You can even water when it”s raining, to good effect.
Second plantings
Dry weather can make this more difficult, however do whatever you can to keep bed is full. In order to have harvest in autumn and through winter. See this recent video.
The photos give you some examples and ideas. This coming week we shall be sowing more carrots between lettuce, and planting kale between onions. Watering the new plantings benefits the existing vegetables, or vice versa.
See also my Knowledge pack about watering and harvesting.
Problems?
Always more than I can mention – the photos give you an idea and I hope to reassure you! The garlic is not a total disaster and you can learn more about the benefits of growing it under cover in this video.
Aphids since April have been shockingly numerous and there are many fewer predators than normal. I’m only now seeing the first serious number of ladybird larvae. What is going on?
This link is for veggiemesh covers to keep insects off.
Good morning Charles,
Thank you once again for sharing your expertise and passion this month, it’s always very educational, fascinating and gives reassurance we aren’t alone in our various successes and struggles.
Your peas look amazing – I love growing them, the plants are so visually appealing in the garden aren’t they and the pods always surprise me in how they just appear almost overnight. The fact that they fix nitrogen for my brassicas that follow just makes them a perfect plant – it’s a shame when you have to pull them up.
As promised, an update on the carrots In planted April 1st in same bed as last year – they are looking very healthy and with Calendula growing nearby they see, to be fine so far – they are covered with enviromesh. The proof will be in the pudding regarding carrot fly damage, but we didn’t have much in the way of it last year, so hopefully this trial is a success.
Also have rust on the garlic and had now harvested as all trace of green has disappeared.
Only issues so far other than the rust are, for the first time since growing them over the years, our ‘Vivaldi’ second earlies are showing signs of blight, with one plant strangely dying a death out of the 15. Vivalidi have always been very easy to grow with no blight, but I’m perhaps thinking they need to be planted in March to reduce the risk – I purposely don’t grow maincrop as our allotment site always gets decimated by blight.
With land being hoovered up by US oligarchs, EU restrictions and payments being made to stop farmers farming, I feel this is a key time to have some space to grow, as you know!
Thanks again and best wishes.
Starting to pick my broad beans here in Norfolk, nearly 3 weeks later than last year. Thought I was doing well as I autumn sowed field beans for the first time as well and they came through the winter cold very well. But the black fly decimated them, despite trying to spray them off with water. So the surviving autumn and early spring sown broad beans have now overtaken the field beans as they have less black fly. Last year, the autumn sown broad beans did better than the spring sown which were decimated by black fly. Keeps me guessing!
It sounds like your spring has been cooler than here, and plant growth even slower. The aphids have certainly been terrible this spring, but a westerly wind at solstice gives me hope for a little more rain in summer.
I’m in Oxfordshire, with a south-facing walled vegetable garden, free-draining over chalk; we have hardly any aphids on the broad beans and yes, I saw ladybirds at about the same time as a few aphids. No grey aphids on brassicas so far though they were awful last year, later in the summer. My overwintered broad beans were fine under heavy fleece, even though we had -11° for a week in December, and the spring sown ones came along well too, though they were the devil to germinate, so I plan to do only autumn sowing this year.
Charles – I won’t doubt your observations in Somerset, but 100 miles slightly north of east from you, my observation is that both blackfly AND ladybirds arrived slightly later this year than normal. The blackfly hasn’t been worse than normal up here, but that’s probably that we’ve had more drier springs than you as a rule. I also suspect that with the cooler spring we had up to around May 10th, ladybird life cycles may have been slightly delayed.
The most likely reason for me to see more blackfly on broad beans this year is that most of the autumn plantings succumbed to the hard frosts and so the majority of my crop this year was sown in February. They are now harvesting but are probably running 2-3 weeks later than an over-wintered crop. I do have four plants that survived the winter, which I am using to make (hopefully) winter-hardy seeds.
One thing I have also noticed is that with the high heat, growth of young seedlings (be they vegetables or hardy perennial pollinators) has roared ahead by putting the plants in more shady areas. Digitalis, catnip, lupins, anthyllis amongst others have thrived in shady heat.
The great advantage for me of this dry warm spell has been the excellent establishment of outdoor cucumber, tomato, sweetcorn, courgette and winter squash plants. No need for fleece for any of those and they have all come through really healthily.
The downside has been the greater struggles of both onion and shallot, something which is something of a mystery to me. They are the one crop group which regularly seems to be suboptimal (although leeks, spring onion and garlic do fine). They are less suboptimal each year, but still not what I would hope them to be. Onions at the home no-dig plot are fine, so maybe it really does take several years for soil to optimise for alliums?
It’s fascinating to compare Rhys, and yes the cool spring slowed things down, but that should balance out between pests and predators. I’m hearing many, many comments about the relative absence of ladybirds, lacewings and hover flies to name just a few. And I’ve been getting blackfly on autumn-sown beans which never normally happens! Terrible grey aphids on brassicas, also a first here.
I hope that your onions continue to improve!
And it has certainly been easy to establish those warmth loving plants.