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May has arrived with the dual promise of summer and freshness of spring.
Time to look after Carrots. Picture Credit: Klimkin on Pixabay
Reporter:
Pat Duke
12 May 2024 10:00 AM
Email:
torbayweekly@clearskypublishing.co.uk
So many gardeners swear that May is the best month in the garden. Certainly there are signs of summer however distant thanks to El Nino moving south. In the middle of the pedestrian task of maintaining beds and keeping them weed free, it’s easy to overlook the more exciting jobs like choosing plants and sowing seeds. This is the best bit and one I sometimes lose sleep over in the long winter months.
If you want to get ahead, have a quiet half-hour sowing biennials for next year’s spring bedding plants and just keep them moist until they’re about to burst into bright spring colour. Foxgloves, wallflowers and dianthus will sit quietly in trays until next year while perennials like aquilegia, delphiniums, lupins and primula can go into their final positions in autumn.
All these come in a great variety of colours, shapes and different sizes. You get so much more variety choosing from seed rather than frantically dashing round the garden centre to sweep up the rapidly drying out stragglers next February. They are such low maintenance you can afford to grow extra to give away to those admirers passing by.
It is the last chance to give the lawn a re-seed or re-turf. Chances are the weather will get much drier and make it harder for grass to establish and we’ll be moaning about it actually being too hot! If you’ve time, give the lawn a quick going over with a tined rake and then sprinkle on the seed and sandy compost. This is better than nothing if you haven’t the time to give it a full-on spring service. Softwood cuttings and cuttings from herbaceous perennials can be taken now in the spirit of sustainability and filling out beds or even making new ones. Softwood cuttings are assisted by the development of fresh shoots that you can take until at least July.
Cut shoots around 4”/10cm long just above a bud and place immediately in a plastic bag. They disintegrate very quickly and this will help. Cut the lower leaves off and then dip the cut ends in fungicidal liquid and hormone rooting powder before planting around the edge of a pot. Take more cuttings than you need to ensure you get some with roots in a few weeks time.
On the plot
Carrots will need some attention in terms of thinning them out. It is possible to keep some of them in the ground longer until they resemble white veins and transferring them into pots rather than disposing of the seedlings. This way you can have a second crop. Any contact with carrot foliage will awaken carrot fly who can smell carrot from any neighbouring parish. Either elevate the beds around the height of a raised bed or cover with fleece.
If you tend to the bed in the evening the carrot fly are, unlike us, less active. It’s an idea to have the fleece ready to drape over crops just in case the May temperature drops at 2am and decimates seedlings and weeks of growing time is wasted.
I sometimes tend to be in a deep trance wandering aimlessly across the plot choosing which bed to cover with my postage stamp sized torn fleece.
Apply a decent amount of organic fertiliser to the leek bed ready for planting in a few weeks. The inevitable rain will wash everything in and the worms will have time to work their magic. I’ve found you can never have enough leeks so have some pots ready to keep seedlings going until you have space to plant them out later in the year.
Get outside and enjoy the days of azure blue sky and sunshine while it’s here. Prioritise the garden and you’re prioritising yourself.
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