Some welcome rain

After the heat of last weekend and early this week it's been a steady decline temperature wise over the past few days, culminating in two decidely chilly weekend days more reminiscent of October that early June. Although it's meant time at the plot has been severely limited this weekend, and the tomatoes and other tender crops will no doubt sulk, the copious amounts of rain that have fallen over the past 48 hours were desperately needed and will have done the plot a world of good.

It always seems strange to friends of mine when I look to the skies and hope for rain, but that's what happens when you become a gardener and allotment holder. The ground has been needing a thorough soaking for a few weeks now and there's plenty of time to wish for long, hot summer days. The problem in the past two years has been too much rain when we needed sunshine and warmth to ripen fruits, so I'll gladly take a washout weekend in early June in exchange for a dry, warm July and August...

On Saturday afternoon the clouds parted enough for me to get out for a couple of hours. The soil was perfect for weeding so I spent some time removing a range of annual weeds that were obscuring the neat rows of parsnips, carrots, scorzonera and beetroot. This accomplished, I also managed to plant some leeks - a new variety to me called Pancho. In the past I've always grown Musselburgh but this year I'm trying two different varieties. Pancho should put on some good fast growth and provide slender leeks from late summer onwards. For overwintering I've chosen a variety called Toledo, which will be planted after the early potatoes are lifted and will sit in the ground all winter to be taken when required.

Having played around with my water butts last weekend, in anticipation of some rain, I now have three of them linked together and being fed by guttering on each side of the shed roof. By the end of Saturday the first butt was full and today's rain should have gone some way to filling the next. I doubt I'll manage to get all three full this summer but it should provide me with enough water for those plants that need extra help in the coming months. The winter rains should them fill all three and mean I'll be self-sufficient in water, which is an important consideration on a site with no access to water whatsoever.

I was hoping to get the remaining pumpkins and squashes in this weekend but the cold and damp means they'll stay in the safety of my greenhouse for another week yet. Once they're in, all the first round of crops will have been planted and the next step will be to start harvesting the early potatoes and thinking about the autumn and winter crops that are going to replace them.