Dealing with the cold June on our plots

Mid June and it’s chilly for June!

I have always had a particular view of what to expect from the months and the different seasons. As I was growing up, there were lots of sayings about the different months, for example ‘March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb’, ‘a wet and windy May fills the barns with corn and hay,’  ‘April showers’. However, there is a general expectation that each season will ‘do’ what is expected in most years. Particularly in the British Isles, we do expect cold [ish] wet weather of varying degrees in winter. We expect it to become gradually warmer though, still wet [ish] in the spring, gradually becoming warmer still and a bit drier through May, June and July. Although August is supposed to be the real summer month, I have rarely known it to be hot and dry. It always seems that the best weather happens when children are stuck in school taking exams then, when they are on holiday from late July, it starts to rain.

Over the last three years here, in south west England, the weather has been so abnormal that I’m beginning to wonder if there is really a ‘normal’.

We have had two unusually, extremely cold winters and, for three winters in a row, I have not been able to supply myself with vegetables throughout that season – even leeks, of which I had a good supply, were frozen into the ground. Last year and this, we have had very hot early spring times which have made it difficult to establish crops as the ground was so hard and dry – this year as early as March [I actually got sunburnt!]. Since then, barring a couple of short, very dry but still quite cool weeks between the end of April and the beginning of May, it was so dry and windy that the ground dried out, becoming unworkable very quickly, even the weeds were struggling. For the rest of the spring and early summer season, it has remained cold, wet and windy.

Many plants are suffering or even being destroyed by a mixture of bird, ant, flea-beetle and slug attack, and destruction from high winds. Plants are growing so slowly that they are gradually being eaten away by all of these problems before they get to the harvesting stage. On visiting my son's allotment, I noticed he has ant traps in his greenhouse. When I quizzed him about them, he told me he had introduced them succesfully to his house when invaded by ants and was now trying to ensure they didn't cause problems in his green house. The ants [it takes only a few, to visit the traps and take the poison back to the queen and the nest, wiping out the whole colony] have been particularly destructive this year on my alloptment and I have bought a couple of pre-baited traps [how organic is that? not at all but I am at my wits end on trying to eradicate these very destructive and vicious red ants from my poly tunnel]. I will let you know how it works - or not!

So far, this season, I’ve managed to harvest a fairly steady supply of broad beans and early potatoes. I have stopped harvesting asparagus though my globe artichokes are just starting [those which have not been broken off by the high winds]. Don't forget to check for those very destructive asparagus beetles [see a previous Blog for information] so far, this year, I have only seen two beetles. But, of course, on an allotment, they will be all around us.

I’m hopeful that I will be harvesting peas in a couple of weeks. My first crop will be Marvel and my intention is to wait until most of the crop is ready then harvest and freeze for the winter. The wind has knocked a lot of the vines over but, I am hopeful it won’t have done too much damage. My second crop – Hurst Green Shaft – is surrounded by a boma [an enclosure created by canes and fleece to keep birds out and the wind from knocking them down]. They might be ready in a month’s time, GW! Strawberries are ripening very slowly and birds [I suspect blackbirds] are eating them as they do. Raspberries are also beginning to ripen – my son and I picked a small punnet of them a couple of days ago.

Fruit has been particularly hard hit this year. There is a very poor set on most fruit trees. Perhaps some of the later flowering apple trees have fared better as they flowered when the rain stopped. No doubt this is a result of the bees being unable to fly out during the long wet month of April. This must surely have affected the development of the bee colonies.

For many of my crops, because I have the time to do it and because I have the enthusiasm in the growing, as much as the eating of the crops, I have re-sown, sometimes twice, [several varieties of beans and coriander] to try to ensure a harvest. A few weeks ago, after a poor start, I ended up with so many squash and pumpkin plants, I was giving them away to my neighbours. Now, I find that the high winds have broken off the best and most advanced ones and slugs have eaten away the smaller ones. Maybe I won't have so many after all.

This has been a very whinging Blog, my apologies. Usually I try to reinforce my strongly held view that each year is difficult for some things but will be brilliant for others. Mostly, I am trying to express understanding for all those growers who are also experiencing difficulties, it happens to the best of us. It has also made me wonder what a ‘normal’ year is. Can we depend on there being such an event? As for the storms we have been experiencing – as I remember, as a child, that we had storms during many Junes, when my father would lose his much beloved boat – driven up onto rocks on the shore. This happened on at least three occasions[that I remember] and at least three boats were written off but, I guess, in the course of 15 years or so, this was not too unreasonable, just memorable when it happened.

As I glance out of my window, I see that the rain has stopped and there are actually some visible patches of blue sky between the scudding clouds. My barometer is low and not moving up but, when I tap it gently, neither does it dip lower. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day. I have plans!