KW-23 Weed, water, mow; repeat.

And don't forget successional sowings of lettuce!

It seems that I am surprised every time one month turns into the next. But really, June already?

It’s still not really possible to get a good picture of the orchard. But, we’re getting there. Another few years (like, 8) and the canopy will start to close and this will be a truly beautiful place to come and sit and eat fruit until you explode. Which is a long held ambition of mine.

June and July are the easiest months in the garden. Weed, water, mow; repeat. Literally every day for the next two months, I will be spending a couple of hours on each of weeding, watering and mowing every single day.

The ride-along grass tractor is still at the the tractor doctor. Last time it had to go there, he had it for 10 weeks. This time, he promised I would have it back within a week. That was two weeks ago. Sometimes I get frustrated with Deutschland. If you live outside of Germany, this is not the impression you will have of life inside of it. If you are here, you know that this is completely normal.

After the silliness of the vineyard, one of my newsletter subscribers asked if she could buy me some grapes. Of course, I said yes, with much thanks, and we got four different vines. Looksee! It makes grapes already!

The repetitive and predictable nature of the next 8 weeks or so is absolutely fine. I like it. I like mowing and weeding and watering, and I will be doing it surrounded by dozens of different growing things. It’s many sorts of relaxing. It also gives a chance to get on with some Projects.

Projects are impossible in Spring (ground to prepare, seeds to sow), Autumn (harvesting and preserving all the hours of the day) and Winter (too damn cold to move), so I am looking forward to cracking on with them. I’m going to start with the “feature” at the heart of the potager. You know, that hole I started digging three years ago!

I also have plenty of time to answer any (food) gardening questions you have. I have my regular mentees, and I am very happy to add you to the mix. As long as it has something more to do with things that you can eat than things that look pretty once you kill them and put them in a vase, we should be fine 😎

In the field, I have a while bunch of different shaped, coloured and sized tomatoes. In the polytunnel, though, it’s Roma all the way. The second-best sauce tomatoes I know of. The best are Amish Paste, but I don’t seem to have any seeds for them. I’ll get some next year.

Here are three answers I gave over the weekend:

1. Yes, your courgettes are a bit close together, but they’ll be ok. Your tomatoes are way too cramped though!

2. You dig a deep bed to break through the hard layer of minerals which you often get on uncultivated land. You’re on sand, so there’s probably not much point

3. No! Don’t pick anything with flowers like that until you are totally sure you can identify poison hemlock in the wild!

What garden questions are vexxing you this week? Drop one in the comments and let’s see what we can do with it!

And with excellent timing, my chum Jack from Zürich has more amazing ideas for rhubarb than you can shake a stick at. Which is good, because I have a considerable crop this year. Considerable.

A Closer Look at Rhubarb

I am reading two things this week. One of them is yet another climate report. It’s worse than the last one. It’s also incredibly long and very full of numbers. For about thirty seconds, I considered a new Twitter to tweet all the percentages in the report, starting at the 1%s and going up to the 100%s. A randomish look at it makes me believe that every percentage is represented! I thought that would be an unusual take that might get some notice. But meh. My days of writing bots are behind me.

The other thing I am reading is this:

And with that, I shall leave you to your trowels and watering cans and wish you much pleasure amongst the greening garden

Much love

The Pirate Ben