Self Sufficiency Update – June

Everyone I speak to face to face or chat with over the internet are completely at a loss with this weather in the UK at the moment.

One minute it’s  sunny the next it’s raining but mostly it’s grey with chilly evenings and we’ve just gone past Summer Solstice.  No long days of hot sun, strawberries are growing late and in my patch I’m still waiting for the blueberries to ripen.

It’s fair to say that growing anything has once again become a challenge in the garden or allotments for people, me included, but that’s not to say I haven’t been busy outside.  I’m spending a fair amount of time tinkering over all the  fruits and veggies I’m growing, and although it’s not great weather I am really grateful we haven’t got extreme weather either.

I’ve included a few photo’s in this post but for more on how the plants are growing month on month, please visit my photo album, over here.

June’s Update

Raised Beds

The mange tout are flowering and pretty they are too.  They have bushed out and are really impressive to see.  I’ve spent more time tying them up with the rough winds we’ve had over the last couple of days because the canes have bent and broken (in some cases), but nothing that can’t be fixed once the weather dies down a bit.

Some of the onions have bolted and I have had to cut away the flower heads starting to form, I hope this is enough to stop them putting any more energy into flowers rather than the bulbs.

I planted a bed full of cabbages and greens last month and they have taken really well.  They did start to get nibbled as soon as they went in and I never discovered what it was that was having a fair feast from them (no signs of slugs/snails)  but I took no chances and added slug pellets, copper pennies and covered the whole bed over in fleece.  Now they seem okay.

Grow House

Three tomato plants are being housed along with a slow growing aubergine plant and various other sowings are to be found in the grow house this month.  I’m quite pleased with the one tomato plant – it’s very tall.

Patio

Part of this area is now being taken up by the chilli house (as I like to call it).  Aside from that both the blueberry and the black currant plants have loads of berries on but are all still green.  The climbers are all doing well and in some cases flowering so not much tinkering to be had in this area.

Fence

The plum tree is growing great guns and I’ll need to get in place the espalier structure sorted out before long.  However the apple tree isn’t shooting as much as I had imagined it would so no rush for any training on that tree yet and quite possibly until later in the autumn months.

Lawn

Do we have to talk about this?  Can we just skip this area please.  No?

Oh well, it’s has grass in the area but it’s far from being a manicured lawn.  The patches still remain because I just haven’t had the time to do them.  Okay, that’s not the absolute truth, I haven’t really had the enthusiasm to sort the lawn out so just tend to mow and feed it until I’ve got more inclination to sort it out.  Unfortunately it’s rather a large feature of the garden so I will need to get it fixed eventually.

Other areas

The raspberry canes I planted are all growing, but rather slowly.  I thought they be much taller, with many more shoot having grown by now but alas not.  I suspect the weather hasn’t helped.  I also think that maybe the clay based soil isn’t helping either.  The leaves on one of the canes started to turn yellow a couple of weeks ago.  It was the new growth rather than the old which apparently indicated that it maybe lacking nutrients.  So I’ve given it some seaweed feed to hopefully get it back on track.  Looking at the leaves carefully, it doesn’t appear to be any pest or obvious disease.

Front Garden

The hazel filberts continue to grow well.  Lots of watering required while they establish which is keeping me fit but they seem to like their situation.  I noticed one of the saplings got caught by earlier frosts and the top 60cm’s (2ft) of the plant has died.  I’m not overly worried though as it’s already started to throw up new shoots from the bottom again.

The rhubarb has also taken off and is doing well.  Not that we’ll have anything to pick this year it’s certainly establishing itself ready for next year.

So that’s what’s going on in my plot, what’s happening over in yours?  

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