May – Planting & Weeding Time
With Aileen Atcheson
Now that May has come, we hope we are free from frost so tender vegetables like marrows, sweet corn and cucumbers can be planted in the open without protection. The bush marrow is the better one for small gardens.
Leeks can be planted now. Make holes with a dibber and drop a leek plant into each hole. They do not need earthing up. Try to have them about nine inches apart.
There is much thinning of vegetables needed now. Turnips, kale, radishes do not thrive if grown too closely together. Parsnips should be six inches apart, and carrots four. Eat the thinnings and they are lovely.
Carrot fly is dreadful now. Alternate rows of carrots and onions help keep them down and a few garlic mixed in. Cauliflower and curly kale should be planted now and your globe beetroot would like a light dressing of salt.
Roses must be sprayed with soap and water regularly to get rid of green fly which sucks the sap and destroys the bush.
