Plant a garden homebuyers will love..
Summer is the time to use your garden to its full effect to help sell your home. So how do you make yours a garden people will want to buy? At the moment, a fruit and veg bed is proving very popular – and it’s so easy to do!
We had a look at what the British Garden Centres’ campaign, Britain Get Growing, campaign has to say about what to plant in May to start looking good soon. Here’s our novice’s guide to embracing the joy of growing your own food.
What to plant now in May
First, if this is your first time planting fruit bushes or veg, you will need to put a little effort into preparing a suitable bed. If you’re a beginner, we suggest you find a space near the back door – somewhere a quick walk to check how everything’s doing, watering on every dry day and easy pickings when your plantings ripen. You have three option: rework an existing flower bed by digging it out and digging in some compost (buy a bag at your local garden centre); create a new bed on a piece of lawn using the no dig method – simply mark out the block you want to use, lay down newspapers or cardboard in the confines of that block, pile soil on top (buy from your local garden centre or find a local firm to deliver, if you’re going large); pop a raised bed on the patio. Then map your planting plan. Don’t go mad, just perhaps one row of carrots, one row of sweetcorn and a row of beetroot. Choose your favourite veggies and have some fun. Or you could simply plant some strawberry plants and pick as they grow!
Root vegetables
As the weather turns warmer, you can sow seeds outdoors for beetroot, carrots, radish, and turnips. Follow the instructions on the packet to see how far apart each one needs placing, and make sure the soil has been finely turned to allow teeny-tiny roots to go deep. This will help result in good yields from early summer to well into autumn.
Sweetcorn
Sweetcorn seeds and plants can now also be sown outside. Choose a warm, sheltered location for these, since sweetcorn is relatively sensitive to cultivation. Always plant sweetcorn in clusters of six to 12 plants, 38-45cm between each plant. Sweet Corn is so good when picked and eaten the same day!
Tomatoes
You can find small tomato plants in your local garden centre and plant them out now. Tomatoes are frost tender and therefore must not be planted out until the risk of frost has disappeared, so May is the perfect time to do this. They will need to be planted in a sunny but sheltered position. You can plant in the ground, in a grow bag or a container. Once planted, water regularly and use a tomato feed once the first tomatoes start to show for sweet, juicy fruit. As our summers are starting to get quite dry, a useful idea is to cut the bottom off a plastic bottle, plunge the neck end deep into the soil and fill this with water whenever it’s a dry day. This will ensure the moisture goes root deep and encourages the roots to follow, and will help ensure fat, sweet tomatoes. Push a bamboo cane into the soil next to the tomato, attach a string to the top of the cane and then wrap this round the tomato plant as it grows. This will hold it up firmly and no need for fussing about with bits of string later.
Potatoes
These are brilliant to do with kids. We recommend buying some potato bags from your local garden centre, placing about six inches of soil at the bottom, adding three potatoes of your choice and covering with more soil. As they sprout leaves, keep covering them up till the level rises to about 20cm above the potato. A great fun and mucky activity for children, it’s called ‘earthing up’. Keep the soil moist. You’ll know they’re ready to harvest when the green leafy tops die back, and the kids will love getting their hands in the soil to find the fresh grown potatoes.
Fruit
If you’re planting a strawberry patch, put straw around your strawberry plants if in the ground to deter slugs. If planting strawberry bare root plants, place them in direct sunlight and well-drained soil for the best results. Pot-grown fruit trees or bushes, including figs, blueberries, citrus trees, gooseberries, currants, raspberries and blackberries can be planted all year round. You can find thornless varieties of raspberry and blackberry, so you can send the kids to pick what they can find, but good luck getting any back to the kitchen. Fruit trees and bushes are a bit more of a long term investment, so maybe these should wait till you get to your next garden!
Herbs
If you only have a tiny space, or a balcony, herbs make the perfect planting choice. Your local garden centre will have a variety to choose from, so you can pick your faves. Rosemary, oregano and sage are all really easy to grow and look after, and parsley is an annual pleasure. If you’re planting directly into your beds, avoid mint. It can go a bit mad, taking over by creeping along the soil, so either pop it in a slightly raised pot, or use a large container!
Eddie – Friday 5th May 2023. (Picture used from Cromwell Road, Stretford).
