Kitchen Garden Diary, May

May 4

If I’m lucky, I’ll get one long, uninterrupted day of gardening a week, usually at the weekend, but otherwise my gardening is done in snatched intervals in between work, walking dogs and picking up children. In fact it’s these short bursts of concentrated effort that yield the most reward, with the pressure of time focusing the mind and increasing efficiency. Today I managed to ignore the sunshine streaming in through my study window until lunchtime, when I dashed out to plant some beetroot seedlings that had been languishing in modules in the greenhouse. If you leave seedlings for too long, they’ll start to get leggy and weak, so planting them out as soon as they’re big enough is important. You can also sow beetroot direct as it has large, tactile seeds that are easy to space, reducing the need to thin the row out, but as with all crops sown straight into the ground, you have to be all the more wary of slugs which can completely annihilate tiny seedlings even before they’ve had a chance to get going. For this reason I sow most things in modules first, with successional sowings direct into the ground as the season goes on if time allows. The beetroot varieties I’m trying this year are ‘Boston’, an improved form of the well known ‘Boltardy’, and ‘Burpees Golden’. I like having two colours together, both in the garden with their contrasting stems, and in the kitchen, where their rich colours look fantastic together in salads or roasts.

May 13

I had a long charity walk to do this weekend so gardening time was yet again concentrated to a couple of hours on Saturday. The first task was to plant out my baby leeks, which I’d sown in one of the large cold frames attached to my greenhouse. A lot of spring gardening is to do with juggling space and moving plants around – a tactical dance that ends when it is warm enough not to worry about frosts any more – and I needed to free up some cold frame space to harden off other more tender things, so the leek seedlings needed to move on. They were possibly still on the small side to plant out – the received wisdom is that they should be the width of a pencil – but they looked reasonably sturdy so I decided to give it a go. I love the ritual of transplanting leeks, using a dibber to make holes, and then filling each hole with water before dropping the leeks in and pushing the soil back around them.

May 22

I love this time of year because you can garden in the evenings. Often I’ll go back outside after supper to finish things off and potter around until the light fades completely. Everything is starting to take off in the kitchen garden: rows of salad leaves and radishes are growing quickly, glossy, green and tempting, and the broad beans are almost ready to harvest. At least they haven’t succumbed to blackfly like last year. If you spot it early enough you can keep blackfly under control just by pinching out the growing tips on the beans, which is where they start to colonise. If on the other hand you fail to notice them, an entire crop can be ruined. The first bean pods are getting bigger by the day and I picked one today as a test. They’re so beautiful when you first open them, the tiny beans pale and smooth in their cushioned, emerald-green pod. Delicious, too, eaten raw straight from the pod.

May 25

A panic burst of gardening before half term. The weeds have appeared overnight, greening the soil as it warms up, so I hoed manically for half an hour to neaten things up before I go away. The carrot seedlings I planted a couple of weeks ago needed thinning, the potatoes needed earthing up (to keep the tubers well underground as they form so they don’t go green) and the strawberries had to be netted. Most years I forget to do this, giving the birds a free banquet with morello cherries as the main course (the tree stands right next to the strawberry bed) and strawberries for dessert. This year I’m determined not to be so kind. I managed to find a few old bits of netting that I tacked together haphazardly to throw over the strawberries while I’m away next week, and a bed of straw will be added when I’m back to prevent the fruit rotting or being eaten by slugs. I left the carrot-thinning until last because it’s best to do it just before dusk to lessen the risk of carrot fly, whose larvae burrow into the roots as they develop, devastating the crop. The flies can smell the carrots from up to half a mile away, and pulling up the seedlings releases the scent that attracts them. Doing it in the evening when they aren’t going to be active is therefore recommended – it also helps to water the seedlings beforehand so that the roots come out without breaking, as this is what releases the carroty scent. Everything done, I finally went inside at about 10pm feeling happy that the garden was in reasonably good shape before I go away. It may seem like a bit of a treadmill at this time of year when all you’re doing is sowing and weeding, but it’s all worth it for the rich pickings later on.

May Checklist

Sow as much as you can, both in modules and outside. Sow courgettes, pumpkins and squash under cover. Plant out leeks, Brussels sprouts, celery, celeriac and summer cabbages. Plant out tomatoes, peppers and chillies in the greenhouse. Hoe off annual weeds and pull out perennial weeds. Harvest salad leaves, rhubarb and asparagus. Earth up potatoes as the foliage develops. Sow companion plants such as marigolds and parsley as edging. Watch out for slugs and blackfly and take appropriate measures.