Although the weather in June is notoriously unpredictable,following the long dry spring, with this April being the warmest on record and the unsetelled weather during the Music festival in May, June can be a wonderful month in the gardener on the allotment, with things looking almost perfect will once the first flush of spring has passed. The gardener will need to juggle his or her energies, for the garden to continue into the fullness of summer.
This time of year little and often tends to be the best policy in the garden, as it helps one keep an eye on the lush growth of garden plants and the tenacious weeds and though toughts of long days spent in the garden during warm sunny weather is the ideal that we all dream of, the tasks of life in general will always get in the way and most times have to take preferance.
Early summer mornings spent dead heading, with a mug of coffee in hand and feet adorned with ones best gardening slippers is surly not a bad way to start the day
. As this month is so busy here ensues a list of jobs for the month.

General Care

• Peas need staking with pea sticks, netting or pruned garden twigs.
• Continue to earth up potatoes
• Hoe between rows on hot days to make sure weeds dry up and die without re-rooting or they will compete for moisture and nutrients.
• Continue to tie in Sweet peas removing, side shoots and the tendrils to encourage extra long flower stems.
• Continue to pick cornflowers and other early flowering annuals from the cutting garden to ensue repeat flowering. Also dead head to prevent seed setting, as this will stop flowering.
• Mulch beds after wet weather to trap moisture and smother any weed seedlings. Home made garden compost or bagged from the garden centre works well especially if spread over 2-4 layers of newspaper. The broad sheets work best as tabloids leave more joints
• Dahlias should now be in full growth filling the flower beds, remember to stake with a coral of bamboo and string, do this as soon as possible so that the new growth will mask the supports.
• Be ever watch full for slugs and snails and any other night time visitors. I recollect when I once grew Dahlias on the Jawbones allotment site Badgers would dig in and around the mulch material up ending plants and canes.
• Bulb catalogues will be arriving by now so it’s not too early to be thinking of where to be planting out ready for next spring.
• Take photos of the garden for reference when planning for next year.

Sowing and planting

• Continue sowing salad crops, such as beetroot, Chinese cabbage, Pak and radish. Leafy salad crops may do better when sown in partially shady sites since hot dry weather can lead to bitter tasting leaves.
• Sow French, runner and, peas, squash, sweet corn, and outdoor cucumbers directly into prepared beds outside.
• French beans are best sown in traditional rows, (18in) apart, at  (6-9in) spacing.
• Sweet corn works best planted in blocks, at 45cm (18in) spacing, with two seeds per hole. Any seeds sown earlier under cover can now be planted out into the same block pattern.
• Runner beans need well-prepared ground and suitable supports (often a frame or wigwam of bamboo canes tied together with twine) for the shoots to twine around and grow upwards.
• Courgettes, marrows and pumpkins can still be sown outdoors in early June. Encourage good fruit set by hand pollinating.

• Plant vegetables sown indoors earlier in the season, including winter brassicas. These can be planted out in ground cleared of early potatoes.
• Gaps between winter brassicas plants can be used for quick-maturing catch crops, perhaps radishes or gem lettuces.

 

Here we go !

May can be such a busy month in the garden with planting out seedling and direct sowing of so many vegetables and flowers along with hoeing and watering, these jobs need to be tackled now for next month its to late.

Weather wise the last of the frost should have finished, but a keen eye needs to be watchful of those night time temperatures and of coarse the extremes of weather that tend to go with the Music festival and the county show, will have us all trying to decide flip flops or wellies?

May is usually the time for planting out any cuttings taken through out the spring or purchased on line. These will include any Dahlia cutting struck from shooting tubers that have been potted up in the green house, in March or April. Bare root tubers will have been already planted in to the garden in mid April.

Since its introduction from South America some two hundred years ago and with a multitude of alterations to its make up, with the work of hybridisation, much achieved by enthusiastic amateurs the dahlia now comes in many forms and an array of colours to suit all tastes.

Divide into categories of form, from the tight balls of the pom-pom through the cacti and decorative forms right up to the large and giants, much favoured on the village show bench.

Some times maligned for being gaudy and crass the Dahlia has had a bad press over the years but they are now returning to favour as new varieties are being seen in the garden centres.

Cultivation is simple plant out as shown above into a reasonable draining fertile soil. In the early stages care needs to be taken to protect the young plants from slugs and snails, also the need to remember, a single cutting can grow into a plant 5-6 ft tall and 3-4ft across a support frame of canes and string will be needed to fight against wet and windy conditions.

When the plant has made five pairs of true leaves, the plants need to be stopped by cutting out the leading tip. This term can be miss leading in that far from stopping the plant it encourages growth in the side shoots that will go on to form the structure of the plant.

For larger blooms the disbudding of the smaller flower buds will assist in the development of the main bloom.

A good mulch of garden compost will help the feeder roots and conserve moisture.

Though many gardeners lift their Dahlia tubers at the turn of the first frost in our warm southwestern climate a thick layer of compost after cutting down the frosted tops should help protect the roots through the winter.

The Vegetable garden

• Sow French beans, runner beans, squash, cucumbers sweet corn and pumpkin seeds directly into prepared beds outside.
• Sow cauliflowers and purple sprouting broccoli for harvesting next winter.
• After all risk of frost has passed, plant out tomatoes, courgettes and pumpkins that were previously sown under cover.
• Other young plants can be planted out once conditions are suitable, and once they've been hardened off (acclimatised to the colder outdoor conditions) for 10 to 14 days.

• Earth up potatoes when the shoots are 23cm (9in) high, in order to prevent the new tubers going green.
• Start to remove side shoots from cordon tomatoes as you see them. The side shoots develop in the leaf axils (i.e. between the stem and leaf), and if allowed to develop will sap the energy of the plant and reduce the quality of the yield.
• Strings stretched along the tops of broad bean plants can support them, and prevent them flopping once pods develop.
• Peas need staking with pea sticks, netting, or pruned twigs from the garden.

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