Seasonal Gardening helps you understand what to do in your garden throughout the year. These guides focus on monthly and seasonal tasks, planting times and weather considerations for UK gardeners.
If you only have one good month for sowing in the UK, May is probably it. The soil has warmed up properly, days are long, and seeds that would have sat in cold ground doing nothing in March will germinate quickly and reliably now. You also still have enough growing season ahead of you that … Read more
May is the month when the garden stops waiting and starts demanding. Everything happens at once seeds need sowing, tender plants need planting out, weeds appear from nowhere, and somehow you’re also supposed to be keeping on top of watering, feeding, and pest control. It’s brilliant, but it helps to know what actually needs doing … Read more
The vegetables that survive late frost in the UK are the hardy cool-season crops: peas, broad beans, onions, leeks, garlic, kale, cabbage, spinach, chard, lettuce, radishes, carrots, parsnips and beetroot all shrug off a typical spring frost. The ones that do not are the tender summer crops, tomatoes, courgettes, pumpkins, squash, sweetcorn, beans (French and … Read more
One of the most common reasons vegetables struggle in spring is not poor weather, weak seedlings or lack of fertiliser. It is planting into soil that simply is not ready yet. Warm days can arrive quickly, garden centres fill with plants, and everything feels ready to grow — yet underground conditions often remain cold, wet … Read more
Every spring, gardeners feel the urge to start planting as soon as the first warm days arrive. The sun feels stronger, garden beds begin drying out, and plants in garden centres appear ready to go. It’s easy to assume that early planting gives vegetables a head start. In reality, planting too early is one of … Read more
One of the most common planting mistakes gardeners make is relying on warm days rather than warm soil. Sunshine may return, temperatures may rise, and gardens can look ready for planting — yet vegetables often struggle, stall, or fail entirely. This happens because soil warms far more slowly than the air above it. While spring … Read more