Jobs for June

TRIMMING BOX

Derby Day. The first Saturday in June. Traditionally the day for trimming box. Two things before we get into the hows and whats.

Firstly, if you have any big hedges that might even possibly have birds nesting in them, then you must not do anything until September. I won’t be trimming my tall native hedge until then, even though I am pretty certain there aren’t any birds in the hedge because two setters do a patrol around them twice a day and they do hard stares at any pigeons who make any foray into the field. Even so, I won’t risk it. Plus I don’t want to lose all the fruit that it already setting on the longest branches.

Secondly, if you don’t have any box hedging and you would like some, don’t. I haven’t yet got box blight in the field, although the big balls at the front have completely gone (I will dig them out today) and I cannot believe that I am on anything other than borrowed time. The next topiary shapes I put in will be something else.

Yew maybe, what with Malus Farm being next to our village church. Beech possibly, because I adore it. Neither look like box (choose a Lonicera or, even better, Ilex crenata, if you just can’t bear to be without it) but if you can’t change something, make a feature of it.

Although it has since succumbed to box caterpillar, I am still obsessed by the shape of Nigel Slater’s kitchen garden edges. So big and square. Until my own hedges reach that size, I will be focusing on two things. Firstly, a light trim to make sure the growth stays neat and even. If you wait until the box has reached the desired size before you train it, you are likely to do a first trim and find all sorts of bare branches and patches. Little and often in the final desired shape will get you there eventually.

Use a sheet or a tarpaulin to catch the bits, box clippings are notorious for evading even the most assiduous sweeping.

Secondly, feeding. Box looks amazing mature, and often a bit disappointing in its adolescence. Patience is required, but you can keep this time to a minimum by diligent feeding in the growing season. Chicken manure pellets are fine. We’re after nitrogen here for green, leafy growth.

Feed pots & containers

This is one of the reasons why I limit my container gardening to just one or two big troughs; they do take a lot of admin in the summer months. However, I do have some which look incredible, and so a tot of organic seaweed feed is not a high price to pay.

Note: Do this even if it is pouring with rain.

Keep PLANTING OUT

I sowed my beans in the middle of May and the first ones, ‘Cosse Violette’, are ready for planting out. There is nothing more dispiriting than planting out beautiful, glossy, glorious plants and watching them be cut in half by slugs overnight so I do err on the side of caution with these. The four other varieties that I sowed at the same time are nowhere near ready yet, they are too small and too lush at the base.

And it isn’t just beans. I am still planting out dahlias that were tubers I started in March. The cuttings that I got are still sitting in the greenhouse being mollycoddled, and they will stay there a little longer. The first dahlias have been munched by slugs and I am taking drastic action, but this has been such a terrible year for slugs, I think they merit their own heading, so please see below.

Into the Dyeing Garden, weld, woad, dyer’s chamomile, marigolds. I will sow plenty more seed in this week; dyeing is remarkably demanding of plant material. I put some seedlings of madder into a big pot. It is the roots that give the colour and, like new potatoes, growing them on in the pot makes everything a little easier at harvest time.

Cosmos seedlings. They have adored this heat.

Irises. After my talking to from India about how pots really aren’t the thing for irises, I have bitten the bullet and dedicated a whole bed to them. When they are little, they need very little digging in, so that’s always a bonus for this lazy gardener.

More sweet peas.  Always. I have used up as much of my hazel as I can spare and I have been reduced to bamboo canes. This does mean extra tying in as bamboo canes are slippery, but all sweet peas will need a bit of extra help until they are really growing fast.

Lifting tulips & narcissi

I have been doing this primarily to create space to plant out, so maybe this should have come before the planting out section. However, this has been a big job this weekend. Not a hard job, but an important one. In an ideal world, I might have left them another month but the foliage was yellowing and I really wanted the planters for dahlias.

I consulted Polly Nicholson’s wonderful book, The Tulip Garden, and hoped for the best. Just when I thought I had got over the ‘in out’ dance of the seedlings in spring, I am back to doing it with trays of tulip bulbs. I need them to be in full sun to make the most of the photosynthesis on the leaves, but I don’t want them to be getting damp or covered in slugs, both will damage their chances of storing well. So in the bootroom at night, and on the courtyard table in the day.

Once the foliage has really died off and naturally falls off the bulb, I will dry for a week or so more, and then pack into paper bags until November.

Foxgloves

SOWING

Yep, I am still sowing. None of that seed tray pricking out stuff now. Just make a line in the soil with a copper trowel, water it, sprinkle the seeds in.

Squash, peas & pumpkins

I have harvested much of the first round of vegetables and those that over-wintered are now in flower. Today is fruit, so peas and pumpkins here. Tuesday is my next root day and I am itching to get more beetroot in.

 If you are ahead of the curve, then the time is now for biennials.

BIENNIALS

Biennials are worth a bit of extra effort for lots of reasons, but first it might be helpful to think about why they are an effort. I don’t know about you but the rush that comes early in the season has slackened a bit. This is the time of year that I want to be sitting in the hammock, (or indoors watching the rain slide disconsolately down the windows) and drinking tea.

 Plus, I don’t have a square inch of a bed or a pot spare to put another seed into, and there is so much abundance that I cannot imagine that the earth will ever be bare and cold again.

But, my lovely, overcome that inertia; biennials are worth it and your future self will thank you.

 My tips are:

Shove them in a pot or a seed tray in the short term. Mine are probably going to be on the shadier staging bits of the greenhouse but that is only because that is the only place that I have any room. Do not feel that you have to direct sow them if you simply don’t have any gaps going spare. It really isn’t a good use of space when you could have dahlias just coming into flower.

However, do not leave them in a greenhouse over the winter. They need cold to trigger spring flowering. One year I smugly left a whole bank of trays of honesty seedlings protected under cover and then planted them out in March. I may be the only person to have needed a three year flowering cycle for lunaria.

Generally the best guide to when seed needs to be sown is when the flower is dropping its seed naturally. I do find this is a bit tricky with biennials; all the advice is to sow before the end of July to give the plants a chance to bulk up before winter but my foxgloves aren’t anywhere near ready to harvest seed from yet. I also have quite a few self-seeded honesty that are looking pretty small and I know they were from a crop I harvested last year and they won’t flower until next.

I tend to operate a bit of belt and braces approach to get round this. I have lots of seed from last year in glass jars (I find biennials generally and foxgloves specifically to be abundant in terms of the seed that they produce) and so I will sow that now. But when the foxglove seed it ready, I shall chuck it about a bit and hope for the best. Oh, and save it, obviously.

My favourite biennials are:

/ Foxgloves

/ Honesty

/ Hesperis (Sweet rocket)

/ Aquilegia

/ Stocks

/ Wallflowers

/ Anthriscus sylvestris ’Ravenswing’ (Black cow parsley)

/ Teasels

/ Icelandic poppies

For more information on how to get going with your biennials, there is a Potting Shed Printable below.

 SLUGS

I have talked/thought/worried about little else for months now. My neurosis has made little dent on the slug and snail population though, but here are my actual plans for the weekend. They involve beer and brambles.

Bramble wreaths. The logic is that slugs won’t (can’t?) slide over gritty spiky things and so if I ring each dahlia and sweet pea plant with a little collar of brambles (I can’t afford to do every plant in copper) then hopefully, they will get a chance to get some growth on.

For the big kettle swill planted which I have just stuffed with the most incredible Cafe au Lait dahlias, I am going to make a big wreath to stop new slugs and snails getting in and set a beer trap in the middle to catch the ones already there.

I have also finally managed to persuade my husband that ducks are a practical solution…

Bramble wreaths

OTHER THINGS

Hoeing. You will probably know my thoughts on gardening as therapy, but I do thing hoeing is deeply satisfying. Back and forth. Back and forth. On a dry day, it is like a knife through butter. Keeping beds clear is important at this time of year. Not only because they will out-grow the plants you want if you give them half a chance but also because slugs are rampant right now. Giving them shelter will mean that as soon as you plant out your squash, they will be ready to pounce. Take my word for it.

Check your soil. If it isn’t slugs, it’s voles. I don’t see them very often and they cause me very little problems above ground. However, I regularly plant sturdy looking seedlings out, water then in and go merrily on my way. I come back to find that they look exactly the same or, worse, a little bit yellow. I have no idea why, but it takes me a few weeks to remember why every single year. It means that the voles have dug a tunnel underneath and the roots are touching air, not soil. If you water hard from above, you will be able to tell what has happened because the soil around the plant will collapse. Get your hand in and tamp it down. I quite like my voles though. Corfe is famous for its ancient oak tree and its resident owl, and I would be blessed if it hunted in my field.

Keep picking the roses. Roses peaked early this year, before Chelsea. However, it is only now that I need to really pay attention and either cut them in bloom, or keep on top of the deadheading.