May 2015

31 May 2015

May sky.

May has been cold! The first half very wet, the latter half quite dry.

Tivon's photo of clouds over the weather station.

Lovely billowy clouds over the woods at the pond.

May vegetable garden.

The May vegetable garden is dominated by Limnanthes douglasii. Poached Egg Plant. May 30th

All day the abundant bees buzz contentedly and fill the air with their song.

And if it looks as if there is nothing else growing....

The leeks are planted,

and there are 3 beds of peas planted, one is on the right here.

Elephant garlic is growing on the left, beside one of the potatoe beds.

These are 2 of the 5 beds of sweetcorn planted, They don't look like much, it's a lot more fun to take photos of poached egg plant, but this IS supposed to be a post about the vegetables!

There are forget-me-nots too, also bee-adored!

Angelica in the Vegetable garden May 30th.

May 22nd.

Alfie collecting wood ash from the range used over winter. Tomatoes and raspberries, amongst other things, love a little potash. Our soil is slightly acid so a light sprinkling lightly raked into freshly prepared soil helps keep the vegetable garden alkaline. I also use it as slug deterrent for newly planted seedlings, it doesn't work after it is rained on though so I try to plant out during dry spells.

May polytunnel.

In the small tunnel most of the plants that were packed in here last month have been planted out in the garden.

In the big tunnel there is plenty of growth.

and outside the big tunnel there is plenty of growth!

The barn has been cleaned out and Angus has left several barrow loads of dung/straw outside the big tunnel. This is now planted up with squash and pumpkin. Next winter this pile will go into the big tunnel to feed next years tomatoes, we do this cycle every year.

Alfie in the big tunnel digging ...

... and dumping, May 3rd.

The last of the tomatoe plants went in on May 3rd. I took these two photos to show how deeply I plant tomatoes, often burying about a third of the stem. The stem that will be under soil level is cleared of any leaves or shoots. The lowest leaf in this picture is only just above soil level after planting.

This transforms plants that have grown too tall and thin in pots into stocky plants again, they will send roots out along the buried stem to strengthen the plant.

Alfie digging ...

first early potatoes....

in the small tunnel.

May garden.

The bed at the house door May 9th.

The area in front of the barn and workshop May 30th.

Outside the big tunnel, golden hops, cardoon, chives....

Outside the small tunnel .

The evening light makes everything glow.

When I down loaded photos from the camera I found that Tivon had taken a few photos of Alfie...

...coming and going from the house...

and of me pottering in the vegetable garden!

Five acres in May.

Five acres is the name of the field beside our home.

Zoe has been helping our neighbours with their lambing and they have kindly given her two Ewe pet lambs. Angus's automatic weather station is in the middle of the field and they were determined to have their photo taken with it!