Life on The Weald - June 2026
- and some distractions
Monday 1 June
With the arrival of summer, I planted out a yellow courgette and two patty pan squash plants that I had bought from the allotment plant sale, and surrounded them with a mulch of Strulch in the hope of keeping the slugs and snails away.
Tuesday 2 June
I continued the planting out of squashes, planting two green courgettes in the bed with the yellow one. There were still some shallots in the bed which will soon be harvested.
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| 2 June - courgettes |
I cleared where beetroots had been grown last year and planted two butternut squash plants with slug collars and a bottle cloche in the hope of keeping slugs and snails away.
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| 2 June - butternut squash |
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| 2 June - blueberries |
I also planted out some early summer purple sprouting broccoli under netting.
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| 2 June - Early summer purple sprouting broccoli |
Wednesday 3 June
I planted out two patty pan squash in the bed with the purple French beans. They should go well together as beans, squashes and sweetcorn are companion plants in the 3 sisters method which I had used last year. Normally it would be climbing beans which attach themselves to the corn, aiding stability in strong winds. Obviously they dwarf beans won't do this but they will add nitrogen to the soil which the corn and squashes need.
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| 3 June - squashes and French beans |
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| 3 June - tromboncinos |
At home I sowed some Stringa Italian climbing French beans, as well as some more Cobra climbing French beans, and some dwarf purple Teepee French beans to fill any gaps in the ones growing outside.
Friday 5 June
We visted Roedale to collect some woodchip and at home I potted up tarragon and red creeping thyme that I had bought.
Saturday 6 June
I was planning to harvest the josta berries. This was the first year I had grown them and I had noticed a plentiful supply a few days before. Sadly, there were now none! My neighbour suggested it was the wood pigeons that had consumed the lot. A lesson for next year, to get some more nets. We used the woodchip that we had acquired to renew and extend the pathways between beds.
Sunday 7 June
Together, Sylvi and I began to clear one of the cages of weeds in readiness for the Kalettes. We also received a gift of two sacks full of fresh horse manure from a neighbour, which I will leave for a while as it is probably too fresh to use on any current growing areas. We did manage to pick a lot of broad beans.
Monday 8 June
I potted on the lucky dip and mystery chillies acquired at the plant sale. I wasn't sure if "lucky dip" was a variety or a mystery. I looked it up and discovered it was the latter, so we will just have to wait and see what comes. The problem with mystery chillies is that there is no way of knowing how hot they are - until you taste them!
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| 8 June - 3 lucky dip and one mystery chilli |
I sowed some basil seeds around the tomatoes igrowing n the pots in the garden. They are good growing companions as well as in the kitchen.
Tuesday 9 June
The beans sown 5 days earlier have germinated
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| 9 June - germinating beans |
Wednesday 10 June
I had bought some Vietnamese coriander, Persicaria odorata|. I was told that it tastes like coriander and can be used in cooking, that it is less likely than coriander to bolt, and that some people who can't eat real coriander, because they detect a soapy taste, can tolerate this. We shall see. I had aso bought more thyme! One orange and the other red wine. I potted all these into larger pots.
Thursday 11 June
We had some welcome heavy rain - and this would prove to be the last rain for a very long time as we were about to enter a period of high temperatures and severe droughts.
Friday 12 June
We lifted the Red Winter onions, Sadly most had bolted and produced flower stems (scapes). The scapes can be removed and used in cooking - especially good in stir fries - but the onions will not store well and will need to be used soon. Some of the onions had been attacked by pests, but the damage was only superficial.
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| 12 June - red winter onion |
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| 12 June - red winter onions |
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| 12 June - blueberries |
I had a little peek to see how the early potatoes were doing and I will need to lift them soon. They looked good with no pest damage.
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| 12 June - First Early red Duke of York potatoes |
Saturday 13 June
We cleared one of the broad bean beds where we will plant sweetcorn (currently small seedlings in pots at home) and direct sowed some Cobra climbing French beans in another.
We picked the last of the purple sprouting broccoli sown last year.
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| 13 June - purple sprouting broccoli |
Fortunately we are not expecting any visitors as the garden table is covered with red onions drying off and now available for entertaining!
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| 13 June - red onions |
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| 13 June - red onions |
Sylvi podded the broad beans which we had picked the day before and we prepared some of them for the freezer
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| 13 June - broad beans ready for freezing |
Sunday 14 June
Sylvi carefully hand weeded and raked the bed for the Kalettes, which we then planted. We also removed weeds from the space between the Kalettes and the onion bed and laid cardboard, awaiting more woodchip.
The bed where I had lifted the Red Winter onions is a partial sunken Hugel bed. Underneath are logs and twigs which were buried there a few years ago. The bed had a wooden surround which is now rotten. I had debated whether to renew the surrounds or just have beds with footpaths between. In the end I decided to buy a galvanised bed frame which would arrive soon. Sylvi started to hand weed the bed in preparation.
We then picked more broad beans and the first crop of raspberries.
Monday 15 June
At home I planted 3 lupins (White, Blue and Yellow) in the raised bed around the dahlias. Lupins like acidic to neutral soil so I added some ericaceous compost to the planting hole. I also planted a variety of daisy, Leucanthemum.
Tuesday 16 June
I weeded the Cobra beans and applied a layer of compost, but a lot had fallen victim to slugs/snails, so I will need to fill the gaps with the newly sown beans from home.
Back home, I planted a perennial delphinium (dark blue/purple) an echinacea (pink), and a rudbeckia Goldstein (yellow) in the dahlia bed; also some low growing border plants Bidens (yellow), verbena (deep red) and Sutera cabana (blue)
Wednesday 17 June
I lifted a few of the red Duke of York potatoes ......
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| 17 June - First early red Duke of York potatoes |
......and tied back the Jerusalem artichokes which were beginning to flop.
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| 17 June - Jerusalem artichokes |
Friday 19 June
As I stepped outside at 8.45am I was confronted with low visibility and cool air and the arrival of a sea Fret. This occurs when warmer moist air moves over the relatively cooler North Sea causing the moisture in the air to condense, forming a fret, also known as haar in Scotland. I was on my way to the GP surgery, where the sea fog was just as thick, but when I emerged twenty minutes later, the fret had gone and there was bright sunshine and a clear blue sky and a rapidly rising temperature - the beginning of the second heatwave and in some parts of the UK the hottest day of the year.
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| 19 June - a sea Fret |
The new galvanised bed was taking shape and Sylvi had removed as much of the bindweed as possible. We put in a layer of cardboard covered with twigs and other organic matter, a sack of the horse manure given to us by a neighbour, some compost from the wormeries and finally a mixture of soil and compost.
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| 19 June - new bed ready for compost and soil |
Sunday 21 June
Far too hot during the day to do anything on the allotment; they said it was only 20C in Hove but it felt much hotter. We decided to take a drive along the coast to Seaford, where at least there was a cooling breeze.
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| 21 June - on the clifftop at Peacehaven |
We did venture to the plot in the evening when we planted some Tagetes - French Marigold. Tagetes release a scent that repels pests and secrete thiophenes through their roots to fight harmful soil nematodes. They attract pollinators and also deter flying pests which attack brassicas. Sylvi harvested the last of the broad beans and cleared the bed . We got the hose out and gave all the beds a thorough soaking in anticipation of a continuing heatwave.
Monday 22 June
We picked the first ever crop of cherries from our patio cherry tree planted last year.
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| 22 June - charries |
Tuesday 23 June
The temperature soared to 26C in Hove and 30C+ in London, where a red weather warning had been issued as the temperature reached record levels across the UK and Europe.
Friday 26 June
We planted out two more butternut squash plants next to the others and two Crown Prince squash in one of the beds where broad beans had been growing.
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| 26 June - Butternut squash |
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| 26 June - Crown Prince squash |
Saturday 27 June
We planted out some of the sweetcorn in the bed with the Crown Prince squash - two of the three sisters together.
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| 27 June - Crown Prince and sweetcorn |
And I planted some Cobra plants in the gaps in the row of climbing beans.
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| 27 June Cobra climbing French beans |
There were signs of the first blackfly, so I sprayed the beans witha mixture of soapy water, garlic and mustard oil.
Sunday 28 June
It was really too hot to be working on the allotment but I planted out the Italian climbing stringa beans. I love saying the Italian for climbing beans - fagiola rampicante.
Monday 29 June
It seemed too hot to go to the plot during the day so I sowed some more Cobra at home as there were still gaps in the row. In the evening I went to do some serious watering. The first heatwave had started on 22 May and the second on 19 June.
when more records were broken, including that for hottest day during June when 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) was recorded on 26 June in Norfolk. It was also the fifth hottest day in the UK ever. The previous record for June of 35.6 °C (96.1 °F) was set in 1957 and repeated in 1976.
The month ended in sweltering heat; the ground is hard as rock and there seems no sign of a let-up nor any prediction of rain in the near future. There is litle that can be done apart from early morning or evening watering.
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