May Day, May Day!

…which brings us nicely to the month of May, in which I was mostly studying & taking exams – which is a slight exaggeration, but does excuse the lack of blog updates, perhaps.

I wasn’t slow to spend time at the Hill though, & with warmer weather & enough rain, the sap was definitely rising.

This encouraged me to sow a row of CARROTS (gonsenheimer) in plot B (roots), despite a singular lack of success with the previous two rows sown in mid March – I believe that we have a grand total of three seedlings there.

I popped a row of RADISH (saxa3) in that bed too, before having a marathon indoor sowing session with a few seeds of BROCCOLI (beaumont f1), CALABRESE (waltham), CAULIFLOWER (romanesco), KALE (sutherland), LETTUCE (webbs wonderful), SPINACH (samish f1) SPRING ONION (ishikura) & TURNIP (snowball).

In bigger pots I put in some CLIMBING FRENCH BEANS (barlotti, birds egg, purple giant, & barlotto lingua de fuoco), DWARF FRENCH BEANS (tendergreen, barlotto firetongue & boston) RUNNER BEANS (saved from last year) & some SWEETCORN (extra tender & true f1)

This little lot couldn’t wait to sprout along with last month’s sowings of KOHL RABI, & the potatoes are all roaring away too - and how gorgeous are these crimson flowered BROAD BEANS?

In fact the plot is shaping up really well – I spent a happy evening planting up plot A (misc) with the TOMATOES (harbinger, supersteak, nyagous black, bloody butcher, alicante, broad ripple yellow currant & paul Robeson) & SQUASH (buttercup, pomme d’or red kuri, redmolo & Thelma saunders).

And good news on the harvest front – I had the first of the SPINACH (samish f1) & a perfect LETTUCE (little gem) along with some RADISH (French breakfast).

...and still to come is my favourite month of the year - onwards and upward to flaming June...