Rain, hail, gales, frost, ducks: yes, it's summer again

Recent weather has not helped the plants in the walled kitchen garden – but things could have been much worse

HMMM. I don’t think that gale-force winds, driving rain, hailstones and thunderstorms were quite what Henry James had in mind when he wrote that “summer afternoon” were the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Nor do I imagine that it was quite what Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn, the two young gardeners in charge of the OPW’s walled Victorian kitchen garden, were anticipating when they planted out their glasshouse-raised pumpkin (Dependable and Atlantic Giant varieties) and sweetcorn plants recently.

And the garden’s baby French bean and runner bean plants, both sown in situ some weeks ago, are also forced to shiver unhappily now in the summer cold and wet.

But then, as Brian and Meeda both agree, the plants in the walled kitchen garden are at least faring better than those in cooler or more exposed parts of the country, where the recent ground frost has scorched the leaves of a host of semi-tender crops and left some potato plants looking very miserable indeed.

According to Teagasc’s vegetable crops adviser, Stephen Alexander, the damage has been surprisingly widespread. “A night-time low of minus 2.5degrees was recently recorded at Dublin airport and we’re getting reports of frost damage to potato crops in Dublin, Meath, Tipperary and even Cork,” he says. “What I would call semi-tender crops, such as pumpkins, sweetcorn, tomatoes, courgettes, French beans and runner beans, have also been hit.”

Just as unwelcome to gardeners as these unseasonable summer frosts have been the localised hail showers, which have injured tender young plants by bruising, tearing and scarring both the foliage and any developing fruit.

“A typical sign of hail damage would be what we call ‘shot-holing’ of the leaves, where the hailstones kill off small areas of leaf tissue,” says Alexander. “Depending on the intensity of the shower, very heavy, driving rain can sometimes have the same effect. So yes, it’s been a very rough year for growers so far.”

But Alexander does offer some small consolation. “Frost in June might be unusual in this country, but it isn’t unprecedented. In fact, you can even have very slight ground frost in July and August. And almost all of the plants will recover surprisingly quickly once we get some consistently warm and sunny weather. In the meantime, if further hail showers are forecast, you can protect vulnerable plants with a couple of layers of garden fleece.”

Pat Clarke, of Met Éireann (met.ie), agrees that it’s been an unsettled and unpromising start to the summer, with mean temperatures between one and 1.5 degrees below normal for this time of year.

“The recent coolish nights and heavy rain are having a knock-on effect on average soil temperatures, which are also below normal for June,” he says. “This is inevitably having an effect on growth patterns.”

But, like Stephen Alexander, Clarke points out that such cool night-time temperatures aren’t unheard of, even at the height of summer. “People are often surprised to discover that you can have frost in this country at any month of the year,” he says. “But while ground frost in June, July and August might be unusual, it’s certainly not impossible. The same goes for hail showers.”

In the meantime, those whose gardens have been badly hit by such hail showers can take some small consolation from the fact that things might have been a lot worse. Torro (torro.org.uk) is the UK-based tornado and storm research station that has designed a hail scale, or hailstone intensity scale, based on both the size of the stones and the extent of the damage they cause.

Almost at the bottom end of the Torro scale is H1 hail, classed as potentially damaging, with hailstones the size of mothballs, or a diameter of between five millimetres and 15mm. Next up is H2, with marble-sized hailstones that typically measure between 10mm and 20mm and cause significant damage to crops, while H3 (20-30mm) will not only severely damage fruit and crops but also glass and plastic structures, such as glasshouses and polytunnels. The highest intensity recorded in Britain is H8, when hailstones the size of large oranges have severely damaged the bodywork of aircraft.

Yikes.

But, according to Torro, the size of the stones is just one of many factors that determine the extent of the damage caused. The number of hailstones, the speed at which they fall and the strength of the accompanying wind also play a significant part, as does the texture and even the shape of the stones. “For example, a fall of walnut-sized hail with little or no wind may scar fruit and sever the stems of crops but would not break vertical glass, and so would be ranked H2 to H3,” the Torro website states. “However, if accompanied by strong winds, the same hail may smash many windows in a house and dent the bodywork of a car, and so be graded at an intensity as high as H5.”

If you think that sounds bad, then be very thankful that neither Ireland nor Britain have ever experienced an H10 super hailstorm, in which hailstones the size of melons have the potential to cause extensive structural damage and “the risk of severe or even fatal injuries to persons caught in the open”.

Ahem. It all makes the recent spell of bad weather sound rather benign by comparison, don’t you think? And even if most gardeners aren’t fans of torrential downpours, I do know who is. While working away in the walled kitchen garden last week, Brian and Meeda were startled by the sudden appearance of a mother duck and her eight baby ducklings, who emerged from their hidden nest in the garden’s thriving comfrey patch.

Not only had the mother duck perfectly timed her ducklings’ arrival to coincide with the departure of Bloom’s 90,000 visitors, their appearance also happened to occur just at the moment that this column’s photographer strolled through the garden gates.

Better again, the family’s timely appearance meant that Meeda and Brian were able to provide them with a personal escort out of the walled garden and send them on their way towards the nearest pond.

Definitely, you’d agree, a case of nice weather for ducks . . .

* Teagasc Kinsealy has recently updated its publication, A Guide to Vegetable Growing, by Stephen Alexander (fourth edition), which is a useful reference guide for anyone interested in growing their own. Copies are available free of charge from Teagasc Kinsealy at 01-8459000, or e-mail at stephen.alexander@teagasc.ie.

* The OPW’s Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Cafe and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open to the public daily from 10am to 4pm.

* FIONNUALA FALLONis a garden designer and writer

WHAT TO: sow, plant and do now

Sow in gentle warmth in pots or modules for a late tunnel/greenhouse crop:French beans (dwarf and climbing), sweet corn, courgettes, pumpkins, summer squashes, marrows and melons. You can still sow cucumbers for late summer, and calabrese and self-blanching celery for late autumn crops. Shade propagators and young seedlings from strong sun at all times now. Although in theory you can sow everything outside, the nights are still quite cold, so its still worth sowing tender crops like French and runner beans, sweetcorn, basil, ridge cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and squashes in a greenhouse, tunnel or propagator for planting outside in a couple of weeks - these need warmth and will still be at least 7-10 days earlier than anything sown now outside, and avoids any loss through slug damage.

Outdoors, sow in modules, in a seedbed for transplanting, or in situ where they are to crop:Beetroot, carrots, cabbages (leafy non-hearting and late stonehead), peas (early vars. now), calabrese, courgettes marrows, Witloof chicory (for winter forcing), endives, salad onions, Florence fennel, French and runner beans, leeks (an early var. for baby leeks), landcress, lettuces, perilla, orache, kohl rabi, radishes, rocket, swiss chards, spinach, summer squashes, sweet corn, white turnips and swedes, summer purslane, lambs lettuce, salad mixes, herbs such as basil, oregano, parsley, coriander, dill, fennel etc. and perennial hardy herbs including sorrel. Also sow some single, quick growing, annual flowers such as Limnanthes (poached egg flower), calendula, Californian poppies, Convulvulus tricolor, nasturtiums, Phacelia, sunflowers etc. to attract beneficial insects like hoverflies to help with pest control, and bees to help with crop pollination. Sow fast growing green manures like buckwheat, red clover, mustard (a brassica, so watch rotations) and Phacelia, to improve the soil, lock-up carbon and feed worms (after digging in), on any empty patches of ground that wont be used for 6 weeks or more, or which needs improving.

Plant out:All well-established, module-raised young plants if they are well hardened-off and there are no immediate forecasts of ground frost.

Do:Earth up potatoes and begin to harvest Earlies, keep seedlings and young plants well watered, continue to harden off well-established, module-raised plants, keep glasshouse/polytunnel well-ventilated, put up protective netting (Bionet) against carrot fly, net brassicas against butterflies, provide support for tall plants (beans, peas, tomatoes), hoe/handpick weeds, protect vulnerable crops with fleece if further ground-frost/ hail showers are forecast in your area.

All sowing details courtesy of Nicky Kyle at www.nickykylegardening.com