Simon's Allotment

By the end of May the plot is just about set out, leaving room for a few successional sowings. It's been a wet end to the month, whic...

For me the main problems are with slugs and snails and pigeons, particularly on the brassicas. I find that sprinkling a circle of lime aro...

By the middle of May it's time for PLANTING OUT, firstly the brassicas and then, once the danger or frost has passed, the flowers.

Outside now at the beginning of May the potatoes are coming through and need earthing up, the broad beans are flowering, the first row of p...

In May it's time to move plants from the greenhouse to the coldframe for a week or two to acclimatise them to conditions outside prior t...

Earlies, planted out at the beginning of the month.

These were sown last November and overwintered.

These are the first crop to go in here, at the end of March. A month later they're growing away nicely.

PRICKING OUT AND POTTING ON is the next job for seedlings raised under glass, to give them more room to grow.

SOWING SEEDS is what I've been doing in late March and April. Most of the cut flowers I grow are half hardy annuals and are started off...

SOIL PREPARATION and maintaining fertility is the most important job in the garden and at the moment I'm digging over the third of the ...

John and Vera on our stall at the Eco Fest on Markeaton Park:

Remember the plan ? This is how it turned out:

Antirrhinium “Vanity Fayre F2” - Sown 7.3 in heated propagator on bedroom windowsill, in ½ seedtray. “Princess F1” - Sown same. Germinatin...

Hung up to ripen: