May can be such a busy month in the garden with planting out seedling and direct sowing of so many vegetables and flowers along with hoeing and watering, these jobs need to be tackled now for next month its to late.
Weather wise the last of the frost should have finished, but a keen eye needs to be watchful of those night time temperatures and of coarse the extremes of weather that tend to go with the Music festival and the county show, will have us all trying to decide flip flops or wellies?
May is usually the time for planting out any cuttings taken through out the spring or purchased on line. These will include any Dahlia cutting struck from shooting tubers that have been potted up in the green house, in March or April. Bare root tubers will have been already planted in to the garden in mid April.
Since its introduction from South America some two hundred years ago and with a multitude of alterations to its make up, with the work of hybridisation, much achieved by enthusiastic amateurs the dahlia now comes in many forms and an array of colours to suit all tastes.
Divide into categories of form, from the tight balls of the pom-pom through the cacti and decorative forms right up to the large and giants, much favoured on the village show bench.
Some times maligned for being gaudy and crass the Dahlia has had a bad press over the years but they are now returning to favour as new varieties are being seen in the garden centres.
Cultivation is simple plant out as shown above into a reasonable draining fertile soil. In the early stages care needs to be taken to protect the young plants from slugs and snails, also the need to remember, a single cutting can grow into a plant 5-6 ft tall and 3-4ft across a support frame of canes and string will be needed to fight against wet and windy conditions.
When the plant has made five pairs of true leaves, the plants need to be stopped by cutting out the leading tip. This term can be miss leading in that far from stopping the plant it encourages growth in the side shoots that will go on to form the structure of the plant.
For larger blooms the disbudding of the smaller flower buds will assist in the development of the main bloom.
A good mulch of garden compost will help the feeder roots and conserve moisture.
Though many gardeners lift their Dahlia tubers at the turn of the first frost in our warm southwestern climate a thick layer of compost after cutting down the frosted tops should help protect the roots through the winter.
The Vegetable garden
- Sow French beans, runner beans, squash, cucumbers sweet corn and pumpkin seeds directly into prepared beds outside.
- Sow cauliflowers and purple sprouting broccoli for harvesting next winter.
- After all risk of frost has passed, plant out tomatoes, courgettes and pumpkins that were previously sown under cover.
- Other young plants can be planted out once conditions are suitable, and once they've been hardened off (acclimatised to the colder outdoor conditions) for 10 to 14 days.
- Earth up potatoes when the shoots are 23cm (9in) high, in order to prevent the new tubers going green.
- Start to remove side shoots from cordon tomatoes as you see them. The side shoots develop in the leaf axils (i.e. between the stem and leaf), and if allowed to develop will sap the energy of the plant and reduce the quality of the yield.
- Strings stretched along the tops of broad bean plants can support them, and prevent them flopping once pods develop.
- Peas need staking with pea sticks, netting, or pruned twigs from the garden.
