May week 1

Rhubarb beds looking towards vegetable garden

One of the most important but so often neglected steps in good gardening is planning. A friend contacted me the other day to say “I’ve dug a area of ground to put plants in. What work should I do with the soil?” So I asked, “What’s plants are going in?” Emmmm I don’t know, Nice things”. Was the response.

Before you undertake any task in the garden or buy nice plants, take an hour or two in an evening and just plan. Look at photographs of other gardens/vegetable gardens, see what you like, what you don’t and use that as your first steps to decide what your going to create. This will give you the basic plan you will need to get started. Too often we go to the garden centres/on line shopping and come back with all these plants, that looked nice but then they don’t like where we put them or worse we can’t find the room for them.

This week in the Helmsdale Garden planning has been the big focus this week. We have grown all our seedlings, Peas, Broad Beans, Kale, Turnips etc. And we now need to plan which plants are going in which bed to make sure we have a plentiful supply of each crop though out the summer season.

Netting attached to shed wall for Sweet Peas.

Flower Garden

We are entering May now but we aren’t guaranteed frost free nights yet, so please take caution.

A lot of the herbaceous perennials, will start to need staked now, things like the Peonys,  Delphiniums and possibly lupins (in wind prone areas).

Sweet peas that have been planted out will need to be trained up netting now.

One of the garden highlights of the next week to look out for is Clematis montana. Lots of different varieties to choose from, all stunning. Good rich moist soil, but requirements are quite light as not a demanding plant. Prune once it’s finished flowering if required.

Newly made wooden arch for Runner Beans.

Vegetable garden

Plant out vegetable seedlings now with some protection if possible and keep well watered.

Tomato seedlings may need potted up now before they go into their final home.

Continue to sow if you have the space to continue the vegetable production.

Sow lettuce crops in between vegetable crops to make sure all space is used efficiently.

As we enter May, things in the garden are about to get even busier but do make sure to take time to enjoy it and also set aside some time to plan!

Clematis montana in full bloom