Vegetables

  • Yum, yum …  taste those delicious lettuce sown late last summer / autumn, together with early carrots, bunching turnips, early beetroot and (if the good weather continues) summer spinach
  • Make sure your broad beans are well staked, plant your leaks and earth up your potatoes
  • Thinking of later crops now is also the time to plant out your Florence fennel, Sweet corn, New Zealand spinach, Brussels, leeks, celeriac, celery, and Jerusalem artichokes.
  • If you haven’t brought on your plants you can also sow main crop beetroot, runner beans, chicory, soya beans, peas, asparagus, marjoram, marrows, squashes and pumpkins, and (until early summer) cucumbers and main crop beetroot.

 

Lawns

  • If you are thinking of creating a new lawn, now is a good time to cultivate the sites before leaving them rough for Autumn sowing.
  • Roll newly created lawns to firm in your seedlings, not forgetting to water them well in dry periods
  • Carry on weed and moss treatments and in late spring apply a light dressing of nitrogen rich fertiliser
  • Adjust your cutters to your preferred summer mowing height

 

Fruit

  • Get those taste buds into practice by planting out your Alpine Strawberries and mulching in your new strawb’s with straw to keep the fruit dry and delicious.
  • Don’t be frightened to take out the blossoms of newly planted two and three year old trees as well as perpetual and spring planted summer fruiting strawberries.
  • Gooseberries should be thinned, raspberry canes tied in, and protective measures taken against late frosts and birds.

 

Ornamentals

  • If you’ve planted seedlings outside, now is a good time to thin them out, while developing plants should be potted out.
  • Both annual seedlings and perennials should be pricked out
  • Carry on with staking up your perennials before they get too large
  • Keep your garden neat and tidy by tidying your herbaceous borders and regularly removing dead heads
  • When the threat of frost has passed, plant up or move out your hanging baskets and containers
  • Chrysanthemums and Dahlias can be planted out and a start made on hardening off and planting out bedding plants and tender annuals
  • Clear spring bulbs of dead foliage, start taking softwood cutting and shear or cut back over vigorous alpines when they have finished flowering
  • Leave planting or dividing aquatics until the end of the month.

 

General Maintenance

  • Take care to water vulnerable and young plants in dry spells
  • Clean out your garden pools
  • Make sure you control pests and diseases before they can take hold, this includes that arduous but necessary task of regular weeding
  • Check that your tree stakes and ties hold well and regularly tie in new shoots
  • If necessary combine all the above with a regular mulching regime