We have had a steady flow of customers at our Saturday morning shop during the past few weeks with the expected heavy demand for runner bean canes, grow-bags and potting compost. We tend to slacken off a bit later on in the year bur dont forget that your plants still need feeding and we have a good selection of fertilizers, both general and specific, to keep your plants nourished throughout the growing season.
The blossom of the old Bramley apple tree at the bottom of the garden has been quite spectacular this year and with the absence of late frosts, Im hoping for a better crop than the last few seasons. I decided that it was in need of a prune during the winter, but since it has been there since the house was built, over seventy years ago as far as I am aware, I decided to proceed cautiously lest too severe a trim proved too much for it. Consequently, I just took out the topmost branch, which I could never reach to harvest anyway, and I intend to trim away a little bit at a time over the next few years. Hopefully, aphids permitting, I shall have a rose or two for our Summer Show which will be held in the Village Hall on Saturday 3 July. Lack of time has prevented me from attempting any sweet peas this year, despite the introduction of a new class for nonspecialists like myself, for a bowl of sweet peas not grown by the cordon method. However, if you have some in your garden why not try and enter this section and add a little more colour tithe show? You can enter any number of stems and there will be a silver cup for the winner.
The greenhouse should be a bit more organised by now, with the dahlias and vegetable seedlings planted out and the tomatoes safely tucked up in their grow bags. I must remember to pay extra attention to the shading on the greenhouse this summer as it can get baking on a hot summers afternoon. In fact I bough a new maximum and minimum thermometer earlier in the year and in April was amazed to find that the temperature varied from -2° during a particular frost night up to 33° during the afternoon. One crop I shall be trying out for the first time in the greenhouse this year is the Sweetheart Melon. These are quite small, a little bigger than a tennis ball, but as their name suggests, they are said to be extremely sweetly flavoured. I cant wait!
John Hopkins