The Victory Garden - June - Gone Too Soon!

"It is the month of June,

The month of leaves and roses,

When pleasant sights salute the eyes,

And pleasant scents the noses."

Time for a June shaped recap of the goings on down at The Victory Garden, better late than never.  To start with, here is a quick little video snapshot of the plot!

It was such a beautiful quite morning which I felt I had to capture, even if it's just 15 seconds, I've put a birdsong soundtrack (ignore the running water) on this clip via youtube, as sadly as my mobile won't record sound on Instagram, which means you can't here the wonderful sound of the bees, buzzing manically around the poppies. Oh and that figure at the end is the beekeeper, I guess it's his bees pollinating the poppies, not a member of CSI!

Never have I looked so glamourous :)

As beautiful as this morning was there was still plenty to be getting on with rather than stopping to film the flowers. Most of Junes allotmentering was spent watering and weeding it's been quite a challenge to keep on to of the watering as I struggle to get over to the allotment after work during the week, and when I do it's a bit of a fight to fill up your watering can before someone takes the last of the water as the tanks fill quite slowly.

Despite the battle to keep everything watered the plants were all looking rather healthy and green, the only plants that were really struggling from lack of water were the runner beans (they love water) so were making not the greatest progress in climbing up the poles, but sill there not dead!

As good as the broad beans look , they have got lovely and tall and have lots of flowers ready for beans to form when the time is right, they are suffering from a black fly invasion!

Ewwww, these are really icky! Just looking at this picture makes me itch!

I decided as there was lots of lady birds munching away at them that it would be mean to spray them with an insecticide, so I went with a more ladybird friendly option, a thick mixture of washing up liquid and water, which when sprayed over the infected crop should kill of the black fly, by suffocating them apparently, nice! Fingers crossed this works!

It was time to plant out the dwarf beans, which once they began to germinate grew up so quickly you could almost watch it happen!

They are now in three short rows in front of the peas in the first section, planting in long rows as per the plan has gone a little awry. I have found that it's been much easier to look after the plants if they are in shorter yet wider rows, as it makes it much easier cover them with netting or fleece, and  treating them for infestation, so this is something I will be bearing in mind for next years endeavours!

I also planted out all of my cabbages and Brussels sprouts which have been slowly maturing in my greenhouse at home.

May to June is the period for planting out your Brussels...Be careful in lifting from the seedbed to see that you get a good ball of soil round the roots. Should the weather be dry, water the seedbed row the night before. Plant with a dibber deep enough to bury the roots and stem up to the first leaves. Press the soil firmly round the plant with the dibber or your heel. (Ministry of Agriculture Allotment & Garden Guide May 1945)

I completely forgot to take a photograph of them once planted, they are in the last section and are currently covered with some netting (you can see it the first picture, right behind me) to reduce the bug attacks!

And lastly, to replace the may carrots which failed to grow, I planted another couple of rows in the raised bed at the end of the plot, this time a variety called Chantenay hopefully I will have better luck this time!

Wendy x