Change with the weather

At last some sunshine! It seems that all we have had is rain since the Chelsea Flower Show ended. Although we had a relatively dry spring, the weather seems determined to catch-up and provide a month’s rain in just a few days, which presents another set of problems for gardeners. We had just managed to get our herbaceous perennials staked before all the torrential rain arrived, so the damage has not been too bad, but travelling around I have spotted some very flat and battered perennials, with Paeonies suffering the most (especially those where the flowers had opened and filled up with rain water).

 

Some of the main pest problems we are seeing at the moment are slugs munching away at everything they can slither onto (which is very easy at the moment due to the very wet soil) and slug eggs hatching like mad in these warm damp conditions, so get some slug pellets down or use one of the organic slug killers, like Just Slug Killer (the nematodes work very well now the soil is warmer).

The other major problem we have had this week is ants. They seem to be more active than they were at this time last year, but then the soil is warmer due to the drier spring. If you spot ants running up and down the stems of your plants, take a close look at the new leaves and young shoot tips and you will almost certainly find greenfly feeding there. If you spray them now, it stops the greenfly populations building up to epidemic proportions.

 

The conditions are perfect for really good growth on most of your plants, with all the warmth and humidity, but remember that these are perfect conditions for potato blight to start. Rather than wait until you see the first symptoms, you can spray with a suitable fungicide like Dithane 945, this fungicides (like the few others still available) work better when they are protecting plants from disease, rather than trying to eradicate it after it strikes.

Our first strawberries are just starting to turn red – the first few have been picked and there are more on the way. With all the rain, we’ve been picking them when they are pink and letting them ripen on a windowsill. If they are left to get wet, they can get botrytis and the fungal mould will cover them within 24 hours.

Steve & Val