A wet and windy May

With winds of 80 MPH, almost constant rain and temperatures reaching little over 13 degrees, May seems more like October.

The warm sunny days of April have been replaced by a month of heavy rain and high winds.  With wind speeds recorded at 80mph in the region, there has been a great deal of damage and large trees in full leaf have fallen, sadly an 18 year old woman was killed locally, along with a few others in the region and further north into Scotland.

In comparison, worrying about the state of our gardens and plants, is somewhat irrelevant, but gardener’s are struggling on.  Instead of spending time keeping plants watered, we are trying to keep them from being waterlogged.

April warmth brought on a flush of eager growth, the fruit bushes are dripping with developing gooseberries, currants, apples and damsons and the lack of frost looks as though we may be getting a bumper crop… if the sunshine should decide to grace our gardens again this year.

I do suspect that the decision to grow blight resistant tomatoes may pay off, let’s hope the cold has not put them too far back.  The plants are looking incredibly healthy and strong with plentiful, dark foliage.  They have been hardening off over the last couple of weeks and hopefully we can get them into their permanent place in the veg patch soon.

The pale lemon foxgloves, sown earlier in the year are flowering and looking true to the parent plant, although a little bashed by the winds, they are remarkably perky.

A family of Blue tits nesting in the garden are endlessly flying backwards and forwards feeding the ever noisy chicks with beaks full of grubs.

Roads are busy, as people arrive in the lake district for their bank holiday weekend….I think we will do well with sales of waterproofs, wellies and umberellas!

More information

Blight resistant tomatoes

Mail Online – 2 killed by fallen tree.