Pippa Greenwood: Golden Garden Rules

It’s great to be joining you on a regular basis, especially when the subject is gardening! I’ll be giving you some hints and tips for what to be doing in your own gardens, letting you know what I’m up to in mine, and in the process hopefully inspiring you to get out in to the garden more, enjoy everything it has to offer, and achieve some pretty impressive results yourself.

Welcome to May, one of the fastest moving months in the gardening year. May is the month when plants just keep on and on growing and developing. New transplants, recently allowed to enjoy the ‘great outdoors’ after an early start in a greenhouse, wait a week or two and then POW! they’re off, and showing you their potential. Old established garden friends, their roots well down in the soil, put on new leaves, stem growth, flower buds maybe even flowers and enjoy the fact that whilst the weather has warmed up, they’ve not yet been hit by growth-restricting drier conditions of summer. It’s a month when it is hard not to feel a regular desire to grab a trowel (or perhaps a fork, spade or cultivator) and get out there and enjoy yourself while at the same time giving the garden and its plants the TLC that’s deserved. What better way to spend an hour or two….or perhaps even a day or two?
 
With the massive surge in interest in growing your own vegetables, vegetable plants and seeds are available just about everywhere, so there are no excuses for not giving it a go. Even if time is short or space at a premium, it really is worth growing a few crops – the feeling of self-satisfaction when you make that first harvest is just SO good....not to mention the taste of the crops themselves. At this time of year you can sow seeds of many vegetables direct into the soil or large pots of multi-purpose compost. Try your hand at climbing French beans, dwarf French beans, runner beans, carrots, salad leaves, spinach or peas. I also adore home grown sweetcorn; this too can be sown direct now, but make sure you sow the seed in a square e.g. four rows of four seeds, formed in to a square (it is a wind pollinated crop and this is the way to get good, well-filled cobs). It is a bit late to raise your own courgettes, squash, tomatoes or peppers from seed, but there should be plenty of young plants available in local nurseries or garden centres – just make sure you buy a variety of tomato or pepper suitable for growing outdoors if you don’t have a greenhouse (the label should make this clear).
 
It is worth spending a few minutes to check flower beds and borders, however small or large, as at this time of year they are a hive of activity. I just have masses of twiggy pea-sticks (well branched prunings will do) and have driven them in around the edges of several herbaceous perennials. So many of these lovely plants are inclined to flop disastrously later in the year, but supported subtly now, they’ll remain upright. As I do this I always spot a few other things that need seeing to as well. All the lovely lush growth means that (in my garden at least) slugs and snails are having a fantastic time devastating the tender new leaves. When I put new plants in the ground I scatter oyster shell around the soil beneath the plants. It is readily available from local suppliers of chicken feed, and is by far the best barrier to slugs and snails that I know....and bought in this way, it does not cost a fortune either.

Early aphid (greenfly and blackfly) infestations are also likely to be building up now, and dealt with promptly they are unlikely to cause too much damage – a gentle but firm squash between finger and thumb works a treat, or for those less partial to direct action like this, spray with a fatty-acid or soap-based spray late in the day when bees are no longer about.

With most of the gardening year ahead feeding makes sense too. So whether you have a well-stocked compost heap, or prefer to use fertilisers from the garden centre, apply them now so that your flowers, fruits and veg have a chance to make best use of them.

Golden Rules:
• Make sure that seedlings and young plants get enough natural light.
• Gradually harden off young plants before planting them out.
• In warmer areas, start to plant out more tender crops, but protect with cloches at first.
• Tomatoes in containers need regular feeding with a liquid tomato food.
• Treat yourself to some summer bedding for a really lively terrace-container, but check the forecast carefully before planting them out.

Pippa Greenwood is a gardening writer and journalist and regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’. Visit www.pippagreenwood.com for more info.

Up until early June you can also order ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’ – garden ready veg plants plus weekly advice emails from Pippa.

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