When you have a downhill garden it’s all about timing. If you go to the garden too soon after the rain you won’t be able to do anything without falling but if you wait too long you risk having another shower or rain period. When you add hard clay soil to the mix then things get even harder. Weeding too soon will make you pull your plants together with the weeds and you won’t be able to clean the paths because it will be like trying to clean tar. Going too late will make a crust on the soil and again you risk pulling vegetables with weeds and also the weed roots will stay under the crust.
This is why when we get a long rainy period it is hard to find time to do garden chores and the past 30 days have been a real challenge with almost everyday rain.
The past weekend was finally a 3-day dry period and I managed to do some garden work. There were some priorities like cleaning the flower beds that are next to the grass border so that hubby could cut the grass(or the flowers would also be cut) and cleaning the lettuce and cucumber beds which haven’t been cleaned in a long time.
This is an excellent year for lettuce. Temperatures are mild and the rain is making it grow like mad. By this time of the year usually, my lettuce starts making flower heads, and only summer varieties survive, but this year all the varieties are growing nicely.
Cucumbers, on the other hand, are struggling a bit, while we had everyday showers they were yellow and stopped growing but the last couple of days they started to recover and grow again. This year I’ve sown them on 3 different parts of the garden, I’m prepared for any kind of conditions. One bed will be good no matter what happens.
Flower beds are starting to fill up, plants are still a bit small due to the low temperatures but they are catching up. Cosmoses, Garden balsam, Calendulas, Iberis, even poppies are a bit ate but healthy.
Wild poppies have just started flowering while peony poppies still haven’t started making heads.
I tried to do more garden work but Sunday came with big showers so there was no time to do more.
Another rainy period started and this week will probably be no time for gardening.
Next time I’ll be able to go to the garden I’ll do some more sowing and filling up the empty bed spaces and this will be the end of sowing for this season.
I’ll maybe sow some more vegetables after I harvest peas, but this will depend on the weather we’ll be having in July. If the heat gets too big or we get too much rain there will be no point to sow anything because the plants won’t have time to grow fruits.
We’ll see how long this rain period will last.
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