May Jobs

Welcome to May jobs, here you will find a breakdown of all the jobs you should be doing in the garden.

May is a great time of the year – but it still has a mixed month of weather, you can still get frost but then you can have hot days. So you need to take precaution when planting plants outside as they can still get damaged by the frost. Here we will give you ideas of jobs you can be doing in and around the garden.

Flowers

• You can start getting the summer bedding plants out towards the end of May as the weather warms up.
• Start following my tip I posted this month about watering early in the morning and late at the night as watering in the day you can scorch the plants with the water.
• As the month passes by your spring bulb plants will be dying off these include daffodils and Tulips. When they die do not be tempted to chop them down, let them die back naturally.
• Start to harden off your plants by taking them out in the day and bringing them back in at night. Do this about 7-10 days before planting outside.
• Start to plant up hanging baskets ready for summer, keep these inside still as frost can still affect them

Vegetables

• As potatoes start to pop there shoots through the ground, make sure you cover up with soil
• Make sure you harvest Asparagus spears when they are no more than 16cm long
• Start to thin out seeds like beetroot, carrots, and lettuce
• Harden off courgettes, tomatoes and pumpkins as we will be planting them outside next month
• Get some garden fleec to cover carrots up once planted out to stop carrot fly
• – Make sure you are hoeing round onions and garlic once a week to stop competition for the water and nutrients with the weeds
• Build Runner bean frames and pea frames from bamboo and sticks

Fruit

• Get some cheap netting to cover fruit bushes, strawberries ect
• Place straw under strawberry plants to stop strawberries rotting
• Pick Rhubarb but only one third and leaving two thirds remaining.