The air and the soil are finally beginning to warm; seeds are germinating and growing in the blink of an eye. It is tempting to plant out your delicate seedlings, but as they say, never cast a clout until May is out – use this advice for your seedlings. You don’t want months of hard work going to waste.
It feels like spring has barely begun and summer is already fast approaching.
Harden off your seedlings
Now that the days are finally warming up, now is the time to harden off your seedlings in preparation for planting out. You can either harden them off by using a cold frame for a week or two, closing the lid at night or if you don’t have a cold frame available just leave them outside during the day and place them back in your greenhouse or polytunnel at night.
Repot and divide plants
Now is a great time to repot any plants that have out grown their pots and become pot bound. It is also the perfect time to split any summer flowering plants that have multiplied in size. This will give you extra plants at no extra cost.
Weeds, weeds, weeds…
Back in March I mentioned that you should have weeded and tilthed your plot. Well, now is not the time to slack! Weeds will become more abundant as the season wears on. You’ll thank yourself for keeping on top of it all. This will be an on going job throughout the year. If you have a lot of dandelions on your plot, why not try making dandelion honey.
Erect your bean and pea sticks
Your peas, runner beans and other climbers will be ready to plant out by the end of the month. Make sure you have your bamboo canes, trellises and archways secured and ready for your crops.
Keep sowing
Even though we are now hardening off our earlier seedlings, there is still plenty of seeds to be sowing this month. Sweet peas, lettuce, spring onions, beetroot, carrots pumpkins, cucumbers… the list is endless. Along with March and April, May is a crucial time to get those seeds sown (directly if possible) for that perfect summer harvest.
The days are longer yet the air is still crisp. Blossom and flowers are immerging from their dormancy. Sunny, warm summer like days are quickly followed with sleet and rain, the weather remains unpredictable throughout the month and there is still a risk of frost.
Sow, sow, sow!
Much like March, April is a busy month for seed sowing. There is even more to get sown this month in order to get bumper crops in the summer. Try sowing successional crops, so that you don’t have a glut of the same vegetables. There is still plenty of time to get potatoes in, traditionally potatoes are planted from Easter and beyond. Whilst there is still plenty to get started with in the greenhouse or polytunnel, you can now get cracking with direct sowing. Beetroot, carrots, parsnips, radish and spring onions are just a few things you can get in the ground.
Get tidying
There’s nothing like a spring clean on the plot to get you ready for the new season. Now is a good time to do the jobs you’ve been putting off for a while; touching up the shed, tidying a neglected part of the plot or even a spot of DIY.
The back of the plot, a job I have been avoiding for almost a year!
Keep an eye out for pests
With the arrival of spring, pests come out of the woodwork. Keep an eye out for slugs and snails, they will decimate any small leafy greens. We use woollen slug pellets. These are chemical free, so they are safe for any hedgehogs or other critters that may be on your plot. They also serve a secondary purpose, they act as a mulch for your young plants. Pigeons and butterflies will also be on the lookout for their lunch, so make sure to keep any brassicas covered.
Cover your cabbages or they’ll be pecked to pieces!
Clean your greenhouse or polytunnel
You may have already done this by now, but if you haven’t now is the perfect time before you are inundated with seedlings. The days are getting longer and you want to make the most of the sunshine. By cleaning the panes and vents, it will allow much more light into your greenhouse or polytunnel.
Sort your compost
The little critters will have immerged from their hibernation in your compost bin by now, so it is a good time for you to empty your compost and sieve through the black gold you have created. Anything that has not completely composted can be thrown back into the pile and left until next year.
As the air begins to thaw and the flowers burst into life, spring has begun to awaken from its long slumber. There is an absolute plethora of seeds to sow and bulbs to plant in March, but try not to get too ahead of yourself. The ground is still yet to warm thoroughly and there is still a risk of frost.
Get planting
This may be stating the obvious, but now is the time to get cracking. Your seed selection for March will be large, so pick the ones you want to get a head start on. Now is also a great time to transplant your strawberry runners. There is also still time to plant rhubarb crowns, although it is best to not harvest the crop in the first year as it may lessen the crop for the following years. Don’t forget to get your first early crop of potatoes in.
Weed & tilth your plot
Since turning over your plot last month, it is now time to tilth your plot and remove any weeds that you may come across. This will give any seeds you sow a great start to the season.
It is best to rake over when the ground has had a few days free of rain
Protect early seedlings
If you are sowing directly in March, it is well worth protecting these seedlings with fleece or a cloche. This will speed up the warming of the soil and you’ll gain a few extra weeks of the growing season.
Prune & tie back
If you didn’t get around to cutting back your autumn fruiting raspberries in winter, there is still just enough time to get them pruned even if there are signs of new growth. You can also prune any other fruit bush, like gooseberry, all varieties of currants, blackberries and blueberries.
Make sure you cut back all of last years growth to ground level
Plant your summer flowering bulbs
Although we have just reached spring, it’s already time to plant your summer flowering bulbs. Your bulbs will all have different needs, some may prefer full sun and others partial shade and well drained soil. Gladioli put on a wonderful show throughout the summer. If you want a continual show, plant bulbs throughout the next few months. Our last bulbs that were planted in mid summer flowered right up until October.
The days are growing longer and birdsong is all around. The air is cold and crisp, rainfall is frequent and the spring bulbs are finally showing face. Although it is still winter, February is the start of a busy growing season on the plot.
Chit your potatoes
You can get your first early crop in in March, so now is the time to start chitting. For white potatoes, I have never used seed potatoes. I tend to use potatoes that have just gone passed their best and have already started to sprout and have never had any issues. For the purple varieties, I will purchase seed potatoes but I tend to cut the larger seed potatoes in half. You’ll get double the crop for your money! You will need to leave the cut end exposed for a few days to dry out; a new skin should form. Once the new skin has formed you can turn the halves over and the chits will begin to form after a week or so.
Turn over your plot
If your soil is not boggy and waterlogged, now is a great time to turn your soil. This will help break up any areas of ground which have become compacted over time and allow it to air. You may need to do this process more than once depending on how compacted your soil is. Dig in compost if you feel it is needed.
If you are following the no dig style of gardening, apply a layer of mulch and keep the ground weed free.
DON’T turn your compost heap
You may think now would be a great time to turn your compost or move and empty your bins, but you would be wrong. Frogs, toads, insects and even hedgehogs may be hibernating in your compost bin and you do not want to disturb them.
Force your rhubarb
If you want a sweet, early crop of rhubarb then now is the time to force your crown. Make sure that you are only forcing well established crowns, although try to avoid forcing the same crowns every year. By forcing younger crowns, you may inhibit future growth. Little sprouts may already be peeping out of the ground, but by using a large pot or terracotta rhubarb forcer you’ll get a nice early crop. The stems of this crop will be paler and more pink in colour.
Wash your pots
You’ll be sowing a lot of seeds this month, so make sure you give them the best start by cleaning your pots. This will avoid any pests and diseases which may be left over from last years crop.
2020 was a strange year for most people, but one thing that kept me sane is this little plot of land. It served as an escape for us when there really was no where else to go.
January was a very wet and slow month. The excess rainfall hindered our efforts to turn over the plot. Our soil is heavy clay, so most of the allotment had become quite boggy.
In February we were battered by storms, but our allotment came out mostly unscathed. The allotment really begins to come to life around this time of year; the mild winter brought forward the spring growth.
The house behind us came off worse!
Spring had well and truly sprung by March. Signs of life were beginning to show everywhere; flowers blooming, seeds sown, blossom on the trees. The ground went from one extreme to another, waterlogged to bone dry! Its a busy time on the plot, as many seeds need to be sown in Spring in preparation for the seasons ahead.
Although April showers hadn’t hit us yet, the allotment was plodding along quite nicely. Seedlings were germinating and growing well in the greenhouse, as well as the makeshift greenhouse in the office. With the ground still being so dry, digging to plant the potatoes was much harder than it needed to be.
By May, it was time to erect our bean sticks. This year we grew four varieties of beans; Golden Runner, Purple Teepee Dwarf, Borlotti and the classic Scarlet Runner bean. We put a tippy tap on the plot as we thought it would be a good idea to have somewhere to thoroughly wash our hands because of how dirty we tend to get in the summer months as well as Corona, as water points on the allotment are few and far between.
The shed was decorated for VE Day, although the bunting has become a feature of the shed
Elderflower ready to be harvested
The tippy tap operates on a peddle-pour system
We celebrated one year on the plot in June. It really is amazing to see what you can achieve in just one year. Everything is in full swing and although the allotment productivity is yet to peak, we had just begun to harvest crops. The ground was still terribly dry even though the allotment was watered almost everyday. We harvested some of our elderflowers and made the most wonderful elderflower champagne, which we are still working our way through!
We had lost almost all of our fruit on our trees by the time July rolled around, although this is quite common in their first year or so. We were harvesting crops every day, there was a complete abundance of food to be had and some of it was preserved for later use.
In August, we lost all of our tomatoes to blight for the second year running. The weather earlier in the year had been hot and dry, as well as dank and wet. The unstable weather created the perfect breeding ground for blight. Harvests were still daily, as was keeping the plot tidy and the weeds at bay.
As summer slowly faded to autumn, the plot was still giving us hearty harvests every week throughout September. The squash and pumpkin were growing well and were almost ready to be harvested, the gladioli [in pots] continued to bloom right up until the beginning of November. The bean sticks were taken down a little earlier than planned, due to them being battered by high winds throughout the month.
Just before the bean sticks were taken down
The winds had pushed half of the sticks to the end of the supporting stick
October was still a busy month on the plot. Most crops had either finished producing or had vastly slowed down by this point, apart from the pumpkins and squash. Our orange pumpkin crop was much smaller than last year. Instead, we experimented more with different varieties and have certainly found some keepers. Uchiki Kuri has certainly become a firm favourite.
Things had slowed down as November arrived. The last few crops were pulled up and we began processing the seeds we had saved throughout the year. It was the perfect time to have a good tidy at the plot, so whilst I spent a lot of time pottering around in the shed, Tom stripped some pallets for wood to be used for upcoming projects. We also took the downtime at the allotment to turn over the soil and add agricultural gypsum to it. We grow our food without the use of any pesticides but have struggled with our soil as it is heavy clay. Agricultural gypsum is a natural way of improving the structure and nutritional value of the soil and help drainage.
Marigold
Scarlet Runner beans
Gladioli
Kohl Rabi
The gypsum slowly dissolved into the soil
December remained a mild month, surprising signs of growth were popping up here and there. Spring bulbs were just starting to peek out from under the trees, and even the garlic was making headway. Visits to the allotment were few and far between during this month, although I still found some time to sow some sweet peas to ensure early blooms for Spring.
