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Tips, guides & insights for your garden
Pinch Out Tomato Side Shoots This Week — and Keep the Plant Working on Fruit, Not Foliage
Cordon tomatoes planted out in May start throwing side shoots almost at once, and a plant left to grow them all becomes a dense, leafy thicket that ripens little. Pinch the shoots out small, by hand, on a dry morning, and you channel the plant's whole effort into the trusses that actually feed you.
Thin Your Carrots This Week — Quietly, in the Evening, to Beat Carrot Fly
Carrots sown in spring reach the thinning stage in late May, and the moment you pull a seedling you release the scent that carrot fly home in on from a quarter of a mile away. Thin on a still evening, water the row straight after, and clear every thinning away, and you turn the single most dangerous job in the carrot bed into a quiet, safe one.
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Pinch Out Your Broad Bean Tips This Week to Beat the Blackfly
Broad beans reach full height in mid-May just as the lowest flowers set their first pods, and the soft growing tip at the top of each stem is exactly what blackfly colonise first. Pinch out the top four inches this week and you remove the infestation site, redirect the plant's energy into the pods, and skip the spraying entirely.
Stake Your Peonies This Week Before the First Rain Flattens Them
Peony buds are forming in mid-May and the stems cannot hold the weight of a fully open flower through a heavy rain. Get the grow-through supports in this week, while the foliage is still short enough to drop them straight down over the crown, and the flowers will stand cleanly through June instead of lying face-down in the mud.
Net Your Strawberries This Week Before the Blackbirds Find Them
Strawberry fruits set in early May and start blushing within ten days, and a single unprotected morning is enough for blackbirds and thrushes to take a third of the crop. Build a low net frame in mid-May, while the fruits are still pale, and the difference is between a full harvest and a salvage operation.
Earth Up Your Potatoes This Week to Boost Yield and Stop the Greening
Mid-May is when potato shoots cross eight inches and the first earthing-up becomes urgent. Mound the soil now, repeat in three weeks, and the row gives almost twice the harvest of an un-earthed bed — with none of the green, inedible tubers that come from sun-exposed crowns.
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Plant Your Dahlias Out This Week for Blooms from August to Frost
Dahlia tubers planted into warm mid-May soil reach the first bud by late July and carry the garden through to the first hard frost in October. Get the depth, the staking, and the slug protection right on planting day and the rest of the season is mostly picking.