Each new month brings with it a new set of jobs to do out in your vegetable garden. With the weather turning warmer (hopefully) and the likelihood of frosts getting less, this month is the month to be getting stuff out and into the ground.
What to do in the vegetable garden this May…
Sweetcorn
Sweetcorn can be sown straight out into the garden or any plants you’ve grown indoors can be planted out. The plants are best grown in blocks rather than rows, with your plants spaced out 45 cm (18in) apart.
Leeks
These can be sown outside in rows in a seedbed or indoors in modular trays. For mini-leeks, sow 5-6 seeds in each module.
Move your leek plants to their cropping site when they are 10 cm (4in). Using a large dibber, make holes measuring approx 7.5 cm (3in) deep and drop each leek into a hole.
Fill the hole with water, not soil.
Modular grown mini-leeks need to be clustered up and transplanted as one unit.
French Beans, Squash, Cucumber and Pumpkins
These can all be sown outside into your prepared soil. If you are worried that it is still a bit cold where you live, wait until the end of May or cover with cloches to give extra protection
Runner Beans
Ideally, these need to be planted in the well-prepared ground which has lots of well-rotted manure and other organic material dug in.
A framework of bamboo is also required for the shoots to grow up.
Cauliflower and Purple Sprouting Broccoli
Sow these seeds into a seedbed, ready for transplanting out into their final growing place. Move out when the plants are large enough to handle and these will provide you with a winter harvest.
Tomatoes and Courgettes
These can also be placed or planted outside now. With the reduction of the chance of frost, these softer tender vegetables will stand a better chance of surviving and fruiting out in your garden.
We’ve a lovely crop growing in our garden this year. We’ve planted potatoes, runner beans, tomatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet peppers and strawberries
Sounds like you’ll be eating lots of homegrown produce this year.
Great post this! My dad does this sort of thing every year and you’ve never seen someone so proud of the runner beans he makes! lol
We’d love to grow our own veg, but we struggle so much with our very high-walled, tree covered, overlooked-by-tall-buildings, north-facing garden. Oh well, I can enjoy posts like this as a proxy!
That’s a shame, any chance you could get an allotment?
We’d love to grow our own veg, but we struggle so much with our very high-walled, tree covered, overlooked-by-tall-buildings, north-facing garden. Oh well, I can enjoy posts like this as a proxy!
I am jealous of your garden, it been a while since I last had one and hope to grow sweetcorn again.
I’m just starting out so all of these aren’t in my garden just yet but one day.
Good luck with your vegetable garden – we are just doing herbs, strawberries and tomatoes this year
That’s still enough to be going on with
This makes me want to grow a vegetable garden straight away. Unfortunately we don’t have much garden but I think I might start a few things in pots. Really great post x
There is so much you can grow in containers, good luck with your plants.
What a helpful post. I would love to have a vegetable garden but sadly our garden is just too small. I have however planted some sunflowers and wildflowers this month and so far they seem to be doing well. Hugs Lucy xxxx
There are lots of veg and herbs you can grow in containers and even inside? I love wildflower meadows.
Having a vegetable garden would be amazing for us. We have the space but not quite sure how to start.
I’ll be doing a post on starting a veg garden soon, hopefully, that might help.
This is such a fantastic post, I can’t even get a daisy to survive so really this has made me think, my daughter and I should start a vegetable garden.
Just start off small and see what happens. Tomatoes are probably the easiest to start off with.
Oh wow, I always wanted to have a Vegetable Garden. Good luck on your own! Can’t wait to see an update.
Thanks, pop over to Instagram to keep an eye out for an update
You’ve reminded me that I need to get some seeds in – I have a garden trug and we grew some rather impressive cucamelons last year!
Wow they sound interesting
My grandpa grows a lot of these things in his garden like the tomatos. He is super proud of his rubarb too and makes an amazing crumble with it too
You can’t beat homegrown rhubarb
This is so helpful and couldn’t have come at a better time as just planning what to plant in our veggie trough so thanks so much for sharing!
My pleasure, glad it helped