Jumpers in June

Flanders and Swann’s wonderful song about the British weather through the months complains that ‘June just rains and never stops, thirty days, and spoils the crops’.  They could have been talking about 2019.  This month so far has been wet, often windy, and unseasonably cold; after a run of days with night and morning temperatures in single figures (Centigrade) and afternoons in the very low teens, I finally succumbed and switched the central heating back on, and snuggled up into a nice cosy jumper instead of the long-sleeved T-shirts that I had been wearing.

I find personally that how a temperature ‘feels’ depends on the season.  In spring I’m slow to switch to lighter clothes as the weather warms up, only tentatively bringing out my summer tops; whereas in autumn I put up with much cooler temperatures before finally changing to jumpers.  To some extent it’s not wanting to let go of summer, but I also seem to be more tolerant of the cold in the immediate wake of the warmth.  But so far this year, the short-sleeved clothes have remained in storage, and are likely to stay there for several days yet.  The wind has turned to the south and it’s becoming warmer, especially when the sun shines between the showers, but the breeze and the rain make it feel un-summery.  There's still a lot of rain in the forecast.

'Gertrude Jekyll' - rain-battered

The rain itself is not entirely unwelcome.  Winter and spring were dry, and the garden has benefited from a good soaking.  But we haven’t had a completely dry day for nearly two weeks, and the rain has often been very heavy, which, combined with some strong winds earlier this week, has knocked a lot of plants around.  Some of my foxgloves are almost flat to the ground, and there are leaves, twigs and small branches from the ash trees lying about the place.  The wind was all the more damaging because everything is in full leaf; winter winds just filter through the bare branches, but leaves create a sail-effect and are much more susceptible to damage.

Flattened foxglove ...

... and another

The impact on gardening has been that outdoor activity has ground to a halt.  I still have most of my seedlings in seed-trays, hardened off and sitting outdoors, waiting to be planted out; others, and the dahlias, had had a couple of days of hardening off (put out in daytime and back into the greenhouse at night) until lack of time (gardener - me - busy with other things) and cold temperatures forced me just to leave them in the greenhouse to await more favourable conditions.  I’ve also had to keep my tomato and aubergine plants in the house; with night-time temperatures in the greenhouse as low as 10C I haven’t dared to take them out there.  I think they will have to make the move this week as the aubergines in particular are getting rather large!

I don’t want to speak too soon, but even with the wet there doesn’t seem to have been much slug damage.  I have several lettuces, in various stages of growth, out in the ground and they all seem to be in good condition.  The broad beans and peas have been blown around a little by the wind; the peas, admittedly, have outgrown their supports, so I only have myself to blame there.   In the past I haven’t been good at tying my broad beans to their stakes, and this year I’ve relied more on propping them up with a network of thin branched buddleja prunings, which has mostly worked quite well.  The autumn-sown bean plants have produced a reasonable crop, which is also an improvement on past years; the spring-sown ones aren’t at that stage yet, but I have hopes of keeping up a fairly good succession of picking.

We did have some dry and sunny days at the very end of May, and just into June,   Hardening off of plants was slightly disrupted when a large toad, apparently in search of a nice damp place to spend the daylight hours, took to burrowing into the compost of seedlings left on the greenhouse floor; I didn’t have the heart to move him (and the seedlings) out into the sun.  After a few days he was joined by a small frog; the two of them were found sheltering together between the lengths of guttering where I’m growing carrot, pea and herb seedlings.  The toad didn’t mind too much when I lifted the guttering away – he just sat there for a while, before moving into a shadier spot – but the frog didn’t care for the disruption and hid among the dahlia pots.  Since then they will have been much happier out in the rain!

Looking for a damp place