What to do in the garden in May:
This is such a wonderful time of year, when there's warmth in the air and in the soil and the garden is just hinting at summer finery. Keep it looking its best with these jobs to be getting on with this month:
General tasks:
- Start mowing the lawn setting your blade to a higher setting to begin with, then lowering it as the season goes on.
- Stay alert for pests, especially aphids and lily beetles which start to build up now, and pick them off immediately.
Ornamental garden:
- Lift and divide daffodils as soon as they've finished flowering. Split them into clusters of three or four bulbs and replant.
- Put supports in place for tall perennials. You'll find a wide choice of plant supports in your favourite garden centre.
- Thin out hardy annuals sown last month, removing unwanted seedlings to leave the strongest spaced at 10-20cm.
Kitchen garden:
- Earth up potatoes, drawing up soil around stems to the top tuft of leaves, to avoid green tubers forming near the surface.
- Support peas with twiggy peasticks sunk into the ground by each plant or by stretching netting between canes.
- Harden off young plants by gradually increasing the time they spend outdoors over a period of 10-14 days before planting out.
