how's it going, everybody, and welcome to episode 274 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode being the first friday of may, we're doing our usual seed sowing guide, and I suppose may is, I suppose, probably the busiest month in the garden. It's the month where growth typically comes together all your beds are full, lawns are grown, perennials are peeping up, weeds are starting to starting to grow as well, and so it tends to be the busiest month in the garden. It's quite a busy month on the front as well. Certain seeds will have dropped off the list this month, but the majority remain there and again, it's one of the. It's one of the months where the the most variety of seeds can be sown. It's as we record this one. It's a huge difference to last week. So last week I spoke about protecting seedlings and young plants. You know from the harsh weather that we had a week or 10 days ago and at the time of recording, it's a totally different scene, you know. So a few days later, it's totally different again, and as we enter into may, it's really warm and dry and yeah, with all the, with all the moisture and all the rain that fell last week and now the heat, growth has really started. So we have an explosion of growth at the moment and it's uh, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a. There's, as I say, lots that can be sown.

And you see, you know, aside from the sowing, all of the garden shows are getting going. This weekend is the Festival of Gardens and Nature. That's in Ballantubbard House. That's on this weekend. Some amazing speakers at that fantastic you on this weekend, some amazing speakers at that have fantastic, you know fantastic array of speakers at that. At the end of the month we'll be Bloom will be kicking off. I might chat a little bit more about that in the coming weeks. And, yeah, there's last weekend was the Clare Garden Festival and you know it seems to be plant fairs. I Kill. Gardens have a plant fair on Saturday, I think. The following Sunday there's the Mount Congreve rare and special plant sale. So there's a huge amount of gardening events kicking off now. May is the traditional month for all of those, so you can imagine there's lots going on.

So, on the sowing front, we're going to go through them, sort of group them together a little bit as well. And you know this, this list hasn't changed a wild amount from last month. A couple of things will have dropped off a couple of things. They're going to need really long seasons. They have dropped off. You know we're running out of time for those things.

Like you know, in terms of sowing, getting a little bit late for sowing of tomatoes, it's because really you want to be getting them into the tunnel at this stage. So if, if you haven't sowed, or if you're held up for any reason or some of your seedlings failed, just go at this stage and buy plants. There's no, no big deal in that. And things like peppers again need a long season and should be planted into the tunnels. Basically, now, once it's warm enough and you know again, if you don't have seeds, so on of those it's a little bit late you're going to be up against it to get a harvest from them. So get some good, strong plants, get them in, tend to them well over the first few weeks, get them established and then you'll have. You'll have crops quite easily, quickly, and melon is another one's too late for sowing that. So you know there's a few, there's a few bits and pieces and then there's a good few on the list that this is going to be the last chance for sowing and we really are looking at the earlier part of the month for sowing. So just to start off, we're looking again, you know, with your, your successional crops. So pretty much every month spring onion is going to be on it. We're still sowing, you know, the standard white lisbon or some of the summer spring, summer varieties. They're. They're perfect for now.

Summer salad leaves, a mix of salad leaves. I have a really good one sewn which is quinoa rocket. There's what else is in it. There's a lettuce in it. You know there's four or five different types and that's a brilliant one to sow. Just get a little bit of variety in it. Perennial rocket is a superb one. Just an hour ago I harvested perennial rocket. That's there all the time it's in flower but you can still harvest. You know leaves off it that are. They're a little bit stronger than the standard rocket but they're beautiful and just. I'll take the flowers off them over over next week or two but it will continue and next year it'll continue and it's just always there, pretty much a harvest off it all year round. So perennial rocket is a brilliant one if you can get it.

Spinach is another one, again successionally sown, that you will notice now, especially with temperatures that it's going to run to seed quite quickly. So you want to be harvesting as quick as possible, using it up and then doing small and regular sowing. So every couple of weeks you're doing a sowing of it. Radish is another one again will grow really, really quickly. You'll get harvest quite quickly off it and you, you know, within a few weeks of this time of year you're going to be eating radish, fresh radish lettuce, just the standard heads of lettuce. Again, I don't do a huge amount of sowing. It's on the sowing guide every month. I don't sow lettuce every month. I'll sow it a couple of times a year because I will do utilize sort of leaf harvesting as opposed to head harvesting. So, for example, again at lunchtime I had some lovely curly headed lettuce and I'm not sure the variety, but a lovely curly headed green lettuce and it was delicious. But all I'm doing is breaking off the outside leaves and that's going to give a harvest for next couple of months. But if you know, if you want to harvest heads, you just need to continue to sow to ensure that you have. You know that you have a continuity of of crops over the over the coming months.

Then a couple that are kind of your last chance to sow. Leaks is one of those. So at this stage you're going to be switching to an autumn stroke winter variety. You'll make your sowing now, you'll plant out in a month's time and then that's going to give you one of these late harvests. So this is, you know, what we talk about. Quite a lot is utilizing that space that we have available and that we're getting our harvest right through to autumn and into winter and even through to early spring, and some of what we'll talk about today will be specifically aimed at that. So leeks, switching to a winter variety, and kind of last sowing earlier part of this month.

Next one is beetroot. Again, a couple of sowings a year of beetroot will do the trick, but in the month of May. If you get a sowing now, then that's going to be again a really late harvest Late, yeah, end of autumn, early winter, and will store at that stage as well, even in the ground. So a good sowing of beetroot at this time of year is going to give you a, you know, nice longevity in in harvest, other things that we can be sown, and you know, just in terms of the brassica family, cabbage. So at this stage we're going to be switching to the autumn, winter varieties, so savoy, red cabbage, those type things, and you're going to be, you're going to be again. You're looking at a harvest down the line, especially with the longer term ones like red cabbage and savoy. They're going to be slow to. They're going to be slow to sort of head up and and and be mature, but then you can still continue to sow the likes of greyhound and, you know, the pointed head lettuce. They'll give you a much quicker harvest.

You know, over over the coming months, purple sprout and broccoli last chance kind of this month to be sowing those because they need a really long season. If you, you know, if you get a sowing done now, you'll get to plant them out in a month's time and then that's going to give you a harvest around Christmas time and into January, february of next year. Really worthwhile crop, because you'll find that purple sprout and broccoli at that stage is just a kind of a welcome boost of fresh greens and they'll be really, really tasty, quite abundant as well. The calabrese you just really get one head of broccoli off it and then you just cut it off and for the space and the time I a little bit of a a waste of time, to be honest with you, whereas something like purple sprout and broccoli, you get just much more off it. It'll continue to hurt, you'll be able to continue to harvest over a good few weeks and it just gives more, more for the space that you're giving it. It is a long-term crop, though, so it's going to take quite a bit of time to get to that stage.

Calabrese I mentioned yeah, they're very tasty, obviously, but I just think they take up a lot of space, quite slow, and then the the reward at the end is a little bit, a little bit less than what it should be. Cauliflower is another one that really falls into that bracket. Cauliflower is beautiful, it's actually one of my favorite vegetables, but the reality is that it takes up a lot of space in your beds and then all you get is one harvest, and it tends to come at once. So I find calabrese and cauliflower, just you don't get enough out of it. I grow them, um, I love them, but just, you know, if you're, if you're, limited on space at all, don't, don't bother with those uh turnip.

So again, continuing with the milan purple tops or the snowballs, those type, you know, small, small turnips you can continue to sew them at the moment and swedes this kind of last chance this month to to sew swedes. And so, yeah, they're going to give you a harvest again through the autumn and winter. So this is why we continue to sow, this is why we have this, the monthly sewing guides because you know you can get out, you can get all your sewing done early, fill up your beds, but you do need to be looking ahead, looking to keep those beds full, to keep something coming towards the kitchen, you know, in the depths of the winter and in and into next spring. Another one that you can sow this month is Pak Choy a really good one That'll be. You know that'll give you a harvest quite quickly. So you'll be harvesting those in. Well, now, may, probably looking at July, august time harvest, but again, you can sow this later on as well.

We're also looking at last sowings of certain of the certain ones of the of the the warmer type crops, the ones that need heat. So, for example, cucumber again, for me, I won't be doing sewing a cucumber this month. All you need is one or two plants. I already have those, so I don't need to sew anymore. Courgette the same again, exact same for me. Won't be sewing this month, but you can earlier in the month, and the cucumbers early in the month, and you are looking at, um, you know, again, one or two plants is going to do and going to going to solve all your requirements. So you don't need to keep sowing that sweet corn. Very much the last chance to sow that, you know, do it in the earlier part of the month and it's a. You know it's a great crop to have french beans.

You can direct sow those at this stage and they'll give you crops, whether it's the bush ones, the little compact ones or the climbing ones. You can sow them and sow them directly Now. You can also pot them or sow them into a pot. That's an easy way of doing it as well if you want to continue to utilize your propagation area. But at this stage we can start direct sowing quite a bit. Um, celery, again, can be sown this month.

Peas can be sown this month and another two now that are definitely into the last month, pumpkin and squash. So they require a long, a long season. I find that the squash particularly because of the length of season required and I think because of the lack of sunlight over the last couple of summers. They are hit and miss. So you can, you can have quite successful years and then other years not so much. But pumpkins generally, generally speaking, are successful and squash can be successful, is successful a lot of the time time. But you know, sometimes it can be a little bit hit and miss, so just watch out for that. But either ways, sowing from a sowing perspective, it's it's early, early in the month, if you can at all.

Some of the herbs we're still sowing, and some of them actually would be sowing kind of you know, for the first time or it's the first time that we can successfully eat, successfully and easily sow them. So coriander, chervil, dill, parsley, pretty much any of those can be sown this month. Basil I haven't sown any yet but I will sow it now this month. So basil definitely needs the heat and do one good sowing of basil and it'll do you all year. You don't need to keep sowing of basil and it'll do you all year. You don't need, you don't need to keep sowing that. Other vegetables still haven't got my carrots, my parsnip, so I have my carrot. So I haven't got my second, my later variety of carrot. So but again, hopefully this weekend I'll get that done. So carrots and parsnips to be sown, and parsnips, just one sowing carrots. This will be the last of two sowings that I do and yeah, I'll be harvesting those right through into the winter. And that's kind of the overall list of seeds.

Still loads of time to be sowing annual flowers and you can direct sow a lot of those outside now. So you know, things like poppy can be sown outside, wildflowers still perfect time to sow them. You're looking at. Loads of annual flowers basically can be sown and direct sown at this stage of the year. So once the temperatures are up, which they are now quite warm the bit of moisture that that came last week. It's a great chance to get annuals, annuals into the ground and other jobs that we can be doing. Still time to sow potatoes, if you haven't done already. Secondarily, some main crops it's probably gone a little bit late for the very early varieties. But secondarily, these main crops, no problem at all.

And then, on top of that, what you will see coming into into your beds at this stage, no dig beds, etc is you'll start to see the weeds peeping up after that spell of rain last week. So the moisture and now followed by the heat. So, in order to stay on top of that, just get a really dry day which, for example, today is a really dry day with lots of sunshine get a good hoe, like a oscillating hoe or a dutch hoe, and lightly hoe all those seedling weeds on a dry day, and they'll just crisp up in a couple of hours and that'll be your your weeding done for a couple of months. And it's really easy to do it on a dry day like that, so you're not digging the ground, you're just giving a little scratch, killing off the root. It'll get, as I said, crisp up on a day like today and it really makes it easy. But you do need to keep on top of the weeds because if they start to get ahead of you now which they'll do overnight nearly at this time of the year then it's a sort of a bigger battle to try and get it back under control. So any weeds appearing in your vegetable beds, just get on top of them quickly. But there's quite a bit we can be sown. Still loads to be doing.

It's, generally speaking, a very, very busy month. As I said, there's yeah, there's, there's, there's lots to be at, I hope, yeah, this month. The sewing guides every month are really popular, so people clearly like getting the little reminder of of, uh, what to sew and what we can sew and what should we sew in this month. The biggest thing is always to keep sowing a little bit anyway, and to keep because it means that you're going to have longevity in your crops down the line. And, yeah, there's, there's lots, lots this month that we can sow. If you've missed out on any of the sowings or anything has dropped off the list this month, just get yourself a few plants, get them in. Still loads of time to do that. So it's not. It's not all gone if you've missed those sowing, those sowing chances, but hopefully, anyway, that's given you a little bit of a, of a of an inspiration or a help in what you want to sow or what you can sow this month.

And uh, yeah, don't forget any gardening questions. Give me a follow on instagram, keep in touch with me. Um, yeah, heard from lots of listeners after, after I reached out last week. So anyone has any questions, any advice, anything you want covered on a future episode. Just buying me an email info master my gardencom. Follow me on instagram. I'm on facebook and all those places and continue to share the podcast if you can, and that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening you.