Now I’m not normally a name dropper but I’m very pleased to announce that the website has had its’ first celebrity hit. I left a comment on Alys Fowler’s blog on the Gardeners World site and she very kindly took a look at Plot to Plate and said some very nice things about it. I think Alys and her really cool little Jack Russell, Isabel, are a great addition to the programme and it wouldn’t surprise me if Isabel soon outshines all the presenters even if her gardening knowledge isn’t quite up to scratch.

It’s been a busy month as you might expect, with planting getting into full swing. We’ve been putting up wigwams for beans and sweet peas and completed the final bit of path straightening. We just need to get some grass seed to fill in some bare patches where we’ve moved or re-aligned the paths and the job will finally be done.

The Asparagus is growing like there’s no tomorrow and producing lots of huge and tasty spears. We had friends for dinner the other day and picked enough to feed five of us and make asparagus and pea soup out the trimmed stalks. It’s still going strong with another months worth before we have to stop picking for this year. It’s been a three year wait for this but it’s really worth it.

We have a patch of ground in the corner of one of the beds which is entirely composed of horrible, heavy and sticky clay. It’s going to need far more compost and soil conditioning material than we can obtain in a hurry to make it anything like good soil so we’ve decided to try planting squashes in deep pockets of compost and cover the area with a permeable membrane.  The idea is that the plants will grow through the black membrane which will hold the heat of the sun and encourage the squashes to ripen a bit quicker than usual. The weeds will also be suppressed. The bed is now covered but the plants aren’t ready to go in yet.

We’ve never got enough room to put out seed trays at this time of the year but we do have a neat little porch which gets lots of sun and is warm even on cool days. It’s ideal for germinating seeds but we usually only have one or two seed trays on the floor. Thanks to the re-cycling queen (that’s Sue - the missus) we now have a high rise germination tower. We went to see Emma, our daughter, a couple of weeks ago and Sue rescued a stainless steel bathroom thing (not sure how to describe it really), destined for the dump, with three shelves which now sits neatly in our porch festooned with budding little plants.

Planting this month

Under cover

Sweetcorn – variety Butterscotch. This one of the super-sweet F1 hybrids.

Courgette – variety Jemmer. We grew this one last year. It’s a very heavy cropper, yellow and tasty (I’m not that fond of courgettes but don’t mind this one as long as it’s picked very young).

Cucumber – variety Long Green Ridge. We've not grown this one before. We tried Burpees Tasty Green last year which is very fashionable at the moment but it did very little for us. It was neither very productive or indeed tasty!

Kale – variety Black Tuscany (Cavolo Nero). You can grow this either as a mature Kale or as a cut and come again salad ingredient. We’ll be doing both.

Brussel Sprout – variety Revenge. Let’s hope not!

Alpine Strawberries – varieties Sweet Fresca and Golden Alexandria. We’ve sown hundreds of these with the intention of lining some of the paths with them. They were planted early in the month and seem very slow to germinate so we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed and see what happens.

For the cutting garden we’ve planted Verbena Pink Spires and bought some more Dahlias, Purple Gem, Tam Tam, Panache and Blackberry Ripple. I have a friendly rivalry with Geoff down at the plot to see who can produce the best Dahlia show. He doesn’t stand a chance!

Sowing direct

We eventually got the potatoes in this month and have planted just two varieties; Charlotte and Red Duke of York. 

Borlotti beans – variety Firetongue. This is the climbing variety which we grew last year. We’re sowing one wigwam this month and a second next month to get a later crop.

Asparagus Peas – This was one of those but on a whim moments. We’ve never grown these before but I saw the packet and liked the idea. They have strange looking cross shaped pods which you are supposed to pick and eat when no more than an inch long and which are supposed to taste of both asparagus and peas. You sow them in blocks, they are self supporting and reputedly very easy to grow.

Peas – variety Kelvedon Wonder. It’s really hard to get traditional pea sticks these days so I saved the cuttings from the dogwood in the garden that I pruned back in February. They look quite attractive set out in a row and the new green peas against the red dogwood will look really good.

Carrots – variety Sytan. We’ve found these very reliable and resistant to carrot fly. We grew them last year without any cover and they did really well.

Beetroot – varieties Wodan and Burpees Golden Globe. The Golden Globe doesn’t seem to germinate as successfully as other varieties but they are really worth giving a go. They're such a fantastic colour and look great in a salad with normal red beet and feta cheese.

Parsnips – variety Gladiator. A tried and tested variety which you can’t really go wrong with really.

Florence Fennel – variety Chiarino. We grew without much success last year. The bulbs didn’t really develop though the fronds were rampant. I think this was due to the very wet summer which resulted in lots of top growth at the expense of the bulbs, coupled with the fact that we didn’t thin them out enough. I’ve also discovered that you are supposed to earth up the bulbs as they develop to keep them blanched and encourage them to fatten up.

Gooseberry – variety Invicta. Looking forward to these. They always remind me of when I was a kid. We had lots of really big bushes in our garden and my mum always used to say that I was found underneath one of them! Fortunately she didn’t put me back.