Planting out in the wet

Our last frost date is almost here & we're having lots of rain. Any tips or cautions on planting out under these conditions? Was going to add fish blood & bone when planting. Thanks for your help.

 

What you intending to plant out? There are some things I'd plant out more or less any time (except of course in the grip of one of the daily expresses Arctic Blasts of Annihilation), but there are other things where I'd wait as late as the beginning of June.

Then its not just temperature to think about. Anything that slugs particularly like would not go out while they are still very young, and not in a wet soggy spell, some stuff is vulnerably to the wind.

Depends on many factors. For stuff that is mature enough to look after itself to some extent, and isn't too sensitive to cold or strong winds etc, I'd have no problem planting it out when the ground is wet.

 

Don't know the soil type for certain; the amount of small stones in it makes me think it's heavy and needed help draining. Earth in Leics is often a lovely plum red, but I'm aware that may not mean clay on this island. It isn't sandy. I don't know what loam means.Maybe @Madahhlia can give a more accurate description if she's about. She lives not far from here.

Planning on planting out runner beans (Scarlet Emperor) and courgettes (F1 Green Bush). Can't imagine planting tomatoes out in this 20mph wind, not even the ones destined for containers. In the ground will go Alicante, Shirley and Moneymaker, and in containers Sungold and Gardener's Delight.

 

@MrsK, is the intended planting area the area around the foot of that massive tree you have? If it is, then drainage is unlikely to be a problem, but the soil quality might be unless you've dug in some compost or well rotted manure.

 

Veg patch is outside the tumtum tree's drip line, sheltered behind garage to height of a little over a metre. Tree is just about to go into leaf.

 

Love planting when it's wet! Much easier IMO, as Clueless points out though... SLUGS and SNAILS love this damp weather too.

 

Interesting. Why easier?

 

Easier if your soil is soft to dig rather than hard, dry clods. Harder if you are slithering about in mud, though.

Soil in Leicester is often heavy clay although mine isn't for some reason.
NW Leics does have quite a red soil in parts, I think it runs up through the Midlands. Not sure if it's clayey, although there used to be an industrial pottery is up there somewhere so there must be clay somewhere.

If you have loam you're lucky!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loam

 

Thanks for the link! Soil in the photo doesn't look like mine, but does look like the brick used to build my housing estate. Some places I hike around here have soil like that. According to a link posted by @JWK in another thread, my general area is slowly permeable, seasonally wet, acid loamy and clayey soil of low fertility. Hrrrumph.

 

Rhododendrons are magnificent around here -- rampant if not controlled. Azaleas not so much... always want to slip neighbours' azaleas a little slurp of ericaceous feed when passing by, hate seeing those leaves drooping.

 

Planted out runner beans yesterday in light rain, was surprised at how open and unclaggy the soil was. Encouraged!