A round up of what to do in your Food and Flowers Gardens
May has seen some beautiful weather, the Seed Pantry garden has been bathed in sunshine. However, we are now hoping for rain, a good soaking is just what the plants need! In the meantime we hope your plants have being sufficiently watered and fed too.
Over the last few weeks, we have been doing all we can to help in your gardens by bringing you weekly and monthly tips on what to do in your spaces.
Let’s continue! Here’s what you can do this month in your food and flower gardens 🏡
Flowers 🌼
🌅 As we move further into Spring and Summer is right around the corner, we can start planting Tender Summer Bulbs. As the frosts are most likely behind us, it is safe to start planting bulbs that are frost sensitive such as Gladioli, Dahlias and Bessera elegans. These can now be planted straight outdoors into pots, containers or borders.
🌷 Early Spring flowers will now be wilting and you can start deadheading by pruning spent flowers. Take garden shears and cut off the flower head from the lower stem once it’s finished flowering. Regularly deadheading your flowers will help channel the plant’s energy into creating new flowers rather than creating seeds, resulting in healthy plants and continual blooms.
🌺 Now that the sun is shining more, most of the garden is happily soaking up the rays. However, we imagine most people have areas of their growing space that are shadier and thus under used. These spaces can be enhanced by planting shade-loving plants such as Hostas, Astilbe and Digitalis.
🌻 From June we will be sowing seeds for biennials, and perennial plants that will flower next spring like Primula, Lupins and Foxgloves.
Now is also the time you can buy many other summer bulbs for planting, including Dahlia, Gladioli, Gloriosa, Tigridia, Anenome, Ranunculus and more…sign up to the Seed Pantry Grow Club for monthly boxes to choose.
Food 🥗
🍅Your Chillies, Tomatoes, and Sweet Peppers sown earlier in Spring can be potted on now, either into larger pots in greenhouses, indoors or outdoors in sheltered warm south facing positions.
Make sure to check the variety requirements of your plants though as the very hottest Chillies require warm temperatures of 25°plus to successfully grow, so these should be kept indoors or in a greenhouse.
🌽 There is still time to sow in small pots of courgettes, butternut, pumpkins, sweetcorn, french and runner beans and second sowings of peas and beans to give you a continual supply well into Autumn. Sowing direct in final growing positions is possible or start these in 9cm pots to grow seedlings for planting out later.
🥕 With the warm weather, vegetables are ready to grow outdoors. Beets, carrots and peas can now all be sown directly outside in veg patches.
🥔 Potatoes should be developing well and in May it is important to earth up/mulch potatoes in their patches and pots. Earthing up potatoes will help reduce late frost damage, encourage larger crops and also help prevent tubers from turning green. To do this mound up soil around your potato plants so no tubers are exposed.
🌱 Remember to keep up with Successional sowing of salads. If you sow seeds little and often in batches, it is possible to ensure plants are ready to harvest in succession throughout the growing season and most of the year. This can be done for carrots, salads, beans and more.
That is all, for now, folks – stay tuned to our Instagram account and we will have more tips and reminders next week! 😁
Seed Pantry
