The Darling Buds of May…

The Beech with its many buds…

May has arrived and suddenly I’m wondering where the year is disappearing too. Spring seemed a long time coming, but in the past couple of days seems to be in fast forward mode with new life popping up everywhere. After being brown and twiggy for so long, the snow berry bushes and trees are greening up. The daffodils have come and almost gone, I’ll be deadheading them them this weekend – thanks Monty! And all around me the beds are bursting with new growth of things I am yet to identify. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered: muscari, hellebores, fritillaries, violas, gladioli and at least 3 more varieties of unknown daffs. One of them looks distinctly like a sunny side up egg!

Since the start of my gardening journey, I have been eagerly looking forward to May. Mostly because, May should see out the last of the frosts, and I’ll finally be able to plant out my first sowings vegetables and flowers. They have been my babies in the potting shed for weeks now, so it will be nice to pop them into their final home and pray the weather cooperates for pest free abundant crops!

Unfortunately, I’ll be viewing the darling buds of May from far far away in sunny South Africa. Yep, I’ll be spending the majority of May in SA for a work trip. I am sad that the busiest month in the garden will mostly be spent away from home, but my trusty partner in crime is on the case, and will be completing a number of projects whilst I’m off sunning myself 😉

Thankfully, the weather for the first long weekend in May decided to play ball big time. We were able to scratch a lot off our list, before I leave this week. Here’s some snaps of what we got up to and where things are at around the garden.

adding some pansies to the topiary

all potted up

Sunflowers, Dianthus and spring onions in the potting shed. I planted the onion sets out this weekend

Onions to the left and empty cloches to the right warming up the soil until I get back

Radishes are in. I’ll plant out the beans at the end of the month. This pot looks a lot bigger in real life!

I had some chitted potatoes left, so I popped two in a pot as an experiment

Spinach, Cauliflower and Broccoli all doing their thing

Courgettes and wee chilli’s

The Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ I moved from a random bed and transplanted in to the rockery yesterday. It seems happy, fingers crossed.

So after a productive weekend, my to do list for the rest of May now looks something like this.

Harden off and plant out Brassicas and spinach
Plant out runner beans
Plant out leeks and spring onions
Plant out sunflowers and cutting garden annuals
Prep the cutting flower beds
Start off second round of seeds in potting shed – this is a bit later than planned, oh well
Build sweet pea frame
Sow wild flower garden
Build additional raised beds for kitchen garden
Paint and organise potting shed
Pot up hanging baskets – trailing geraniums all the way!
Repair and paint greenhouse or chuck it – I can’t decide!
Start off tomato plugs in greenhouse
Sow the herb bed
Weeding weeding and more weeding

Andrew will be caring for our potting shed babies, the greenhouse project, and building the new raised bed. So I hope to bring you some updates on all of that whilst I’m away.