May In The Garden | It’s the time to reflect and regroup

May In The Garden

I have a confession to make….

I have not stepped into the garden in well over 2 months, other than to harvest produce.

And boy, oh boy, am I feeling horrible about it. I look out from the kitchen at it all, and all I want to do is get out in it, but life just keeps getting in the way.

I do wish I didn’t have a mortgage or bills to pay because I’d be out there in it every day if I could.

So, May in the garden - let's get into it!

But that’s why you put the hard work in early in the season, so that when life gets in the way, the garden will just keep ticking along without much input from us.

We’ve had a couple of frosts in recent weeks, and that has taken all the summer vegetables out—courgettes and tomatoes are done.

The nasturtiums are looking very sad in parts, but in some other spots, they are ticking along nicely, thank goodness, because I’ve discovered a great recipe for making pesto with the leaves.

It’s great, just has a little hint of the pepperiness that I love from the nasturtiums.

Once life becomes less hectic and I have time to spend out in the garden, there is a list of things that I will be tackling.

• The asparagus needs some much-needed attention—I’ll need to prune back the ferns, and the bed needs a good feed with some broken-down manure, and I’ll cover it with some mulch.

• The lavender will need a trim, which I actually love doing now that I have the right tool with which to prune it. I cannot recommend my Stihl trimmer more. What used to take me half a day now takes me half an hour; it takes longer to gather up all the trimmings than it does to prune them.

• All the vegetable beds need to be cleared, tidied, and fed up. I do have a bed with some winter veg in, but the rest will need some care taken with them.

• The flower beds will get a clear too, but I have to say it’s been so nice watching all the finches and other seed-eating birds happily feeding on the cosmos, sunflowers, and hollyhocks. The flower beds are pretty self-sufficient with little input from me nowadays. That was always the plan, but I do have a couple of new plants I’d like to try in the coming season.

• The glasshouse will be cleared out, and I will sow a green crop later in the winter to come up as the soil temperature rises. I prefer a green crop in there as it helps to condition the soil, and I make sure to use mustard in the seed mix as it helps to clean the soil of most nasties.

• It's time to get the garlic bed started. I will clear a bed and top it up with all the goodness, giving it some time to break down before I plant out on the shortest day, the 21st of June. I aim for that date because the ground isn’t so hard from frost, and the window for pulling it in the Christmas period works for my schedule.

  I haven’t had an issue with rust, but you never know, maybe this season.

  
  

I think that list will keep me busy for the next wee bit. I am really looking forward to it, but in the meantime, I will still keep enjoying my wanders in the autumn evenings, and I’m looking forward to the winter veg that I have planted.