Weather grumble or opportunity ?

[nickdub]

Weather is one of the main topics of conversation when it comes to farmers and gardeners - frequently accompanied by a lot of grumbling, which is as it should be since this is an honourable tradition dating back to Adam :-)

So now we have a prolonged dose of the wet stuff we can all moan too, but also be aware that this is a very good time for certain gardening jobs. I've been planting out some peas I had in containers and also some annual flowers which I'd grown from seed. Surprisingly the ground was nice and damp :-) and the fact that its mizzling will also help the plants settle in.

Obviously this advice for getting plants in the ground where possible only applies to hardy things ie ones which can stand to be frosted. But that includes a lot of veg like peas, broad beans, onions, brassicas and to hardy annual flowers, some perennials, shrubs, bushes and trees.

So if you have stuff in pots which is saying "plant me", on with the wellies and grab your trowel, shovel or whatever seems appropriate.

Happy gardening

[Dogs and Veg]

Oh, so can my broadbeans go out in containers just now without being under a cover?

[nickdub]

Basically yes - though if they've been inside, a few days where you put them out for a bit then bring them back in at night is advisable - aka hardening off.

[nickdub]

BTW I should have mentioned that if, like me, you have large parts of the garden where the main plants are nettles, brambles and bindweed, but with some soft fruit and/or perennial flowers that you'd like to keep mixed in with the weeds, forking over these bits is better done is this damp weather. There are two reasons for this. One is the damp soil makes it a bit easier to pull up long weed roots like nettles when you can sometimes get 2' or more from a single tugging match, and the other is when you disturb the roots of the plants you do want to keep they are more like to survive the process if the ground is good and damp.