May Gardening Tips
May is such a lovely month in the garden with all your planting plans being able to go ahead now offering the promise for wonderful shows of colour and of fruit and vegetables later in the year.
The range of plants available for planting in your summer pots and baskets grows bigger every year so your choice of colour combinations is only restricted by your imagination. There are plants suitable for every location and of course many are also very nicely scented adding that extra layer of pleasure. Look out for the old favourite white flowered Alyssum, the double flowered trailing petunia “Priscilla” or one of the many varieties of Nemesia for some gorgeous scented flowers.
If you like a little project with your growing why not have a go at making your own standard fuchsia. You can buy plants as “whips”, that is a plant already growing as a strong single stem, or you can start your own from any plant by pinching out all its growing shoots except one. Encourage it to grow well by potting into a 6 inch (15 cm) pot in Jacks Magic potting compost and feed weekly with Miracle gro. Train the main growth up a cane and pinch out any side shoots that grow off this, but leave the leaves on the stem as they help to thicken it up. When it is as tall as you want it, pinch out your main growing tip and allow the side shoots just below this to grow out too. You will need to pinch these side shoots out once they get to about 6 inches (15 cm) long, and if you feel its not bushy enough do this a second time once these have grown out again. This will make a stunning addition to your summer display.
One of the best additions to the vegetable plant selection in recent years has been the introduction of grafted plants of cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. These are where a strong fruiting variety is grafted onto a rootstock of the same type of plant which is a vigorous and disease resistant form. The combination produces plants that are very productive with yields of cucumbers being quoted at 110 off 1 plant! Some cucumber plants we have here have already set 10 fruits in just 2 weeks since planting in a cold greenhouse. They are well worth the extra cost caused by the manual task of grafting the two plants together.
When planting your pots and baskets use either the Miracle gro Moisture Control Compost which has controlled release fertilizer and water retaining gel already included to ensure your plants do their best. You can also buy the Miracle gro all purpose controlled release fertilizer granules which feed the plants with 10 nutrients over 6 months and the Aqua gel water retaining granules separately, to add to your normal compost to get the same benefits.
Ants are already very active which can be treated with Ant powder. The ants pick this up on their bodies as they walk through it and take it back to the nest. Once enough chemical has been deposited in the nest it will die off so do persevere with your applications.