Another week of cooler weather with lots of showers and rain. I guess we better get used to it this year.

Rainy May

Unlike last year’s May, which was very warm and stormy, this May was much cooler with huge amounts of rain. This May, we got an unbelievable 212mm of rain, which combined with 437mm from the previous month, throws us over the yearly amount of rainfall. May is usually one of the rainiest months in this area, but this year we doubled the average.

The pretty low temperatures worsened the conditions in the garden. Luckily we didn’t get any frost, but daily temperatures below 20°C(68°F), which we had most of the month, are still too low for us. The lack of warmth is especially visible in my forest garden, which suffers from a lack of heat in normal conditions. This year all of the heat-loving plants are almost a month behind in growth. Most of them stood still during half of the month and actually started growing this past couple of days.

The two weeks of May were no exception when it comes to rain. Although the amounts that we get are now much smaller, and usually in the form of summer showers, we’re still having them almost every single day. This makes garden work almost impossible, and it’s hard to catch a dry day or two.

Beans Are Enjoying It

Luckily there are vegetables that love cooler and wet weather. Beans are thriving. Although most of them were sown in the middle of May, in just two weeks they grew like they were sown a month ago. If we don’t get a very dry and warm summer, which by the looks of it we won’t, this could be a very good bean harvest.

Broad beans are also coming along nicely. The main garden ones are flowering right now, and the ones in the side garden, already have the first pods. The problem with them is that due to the lack of light, they grew huge, and are leaning to the right side which is sunnier. I had to tie them multiple times and although they should be determinate bush variety, they are already over 1m tall.

This year I’m also growing chickpeas and lentils. This is the first time I’m trying to grow them, and from what I’ve noticed, chickpeas like the cooler and shaded area. They are growing really well. Lentil on the other hand isn’t doing well in the shaded bed, but the ones sown on the orchard’s sunny side are thriving. To be honest I wasn’t expecting them to be so tiny. Knowing the height they reach, next year I will sow them in the side garden, and on the border of beds with other vegetables.

Together with beans, my peas are also enjoying this kind of weather. They are blooming like mad, and hopefully this year I will finally have lots of peas. This would be a nice change since past 10 years I got almost nothing from them.

We Keep On Waiting

The heat-loving vegetables are really struggling, and I’m still waiting for them to start growing properly. The cucumbers and tomatoes have survived the cool period and are starting to recover, but the progress is very slow. At least the color of the leaves is returning to normal.

I did plan to fertilize them again, but this plan failed miserably since I can’t catch a day without rain. I bought mostly liquid fertilizers, and now with the garden wet all the time I can’t really use them. This is funny because last year I bought pelleted fertilizers, and again couldn’t use them due to the drought we had. This year I went with liquid ones, so that the situation doesn’t happen again, and this year we’re almost drowning in rain.

Plans For Next Week

When it comes to plans for next week I have none. We’ll have another full week of rain, and honestly, I’ve stopped making any plans. When the weather is nice enough I go to the garden and do as much as I can and the rest is just waiting for another opportunity. There is so little dry time that even mowing the yard and garden takes 3 to 4 days. The grass is growing like mad, and we only get a couple of dry hours a day.

The good thing is that we should finally have a week of 20+°C(68°F) temperatures, so the vegetables could actually benefit from this kind of weather. Except for the tomatoes, which I have a feeling, will be the tragic story of this year.