What to do in your garden in May

• Begin to plant out some of the more tender crops
• Make a runner bean wigwam
• Hoe regularly to keep down weeds
• Top Tips on conserving water in the veg garden

Read more about growing your own veg..

Find out how to make your own compost - include our step by step video guide

Mulch around strawberries

Clear weeds around fruit trees & bushes

Prune new plum trees

Fruit garden jobs..

Plant out hardy herbs

Sow seed outside and under glass

Take softwood cuttings

Herb garden jobs..

Mulch around sweet peas

Protect against slugs

Plant ornamental grasses & bamboos

Ornamental garden jobs..

• Attract beneficial creatures to your garden and allotment.

  One way of doing this is to grow flowers to provide pollen and nectar for insects such as hoverflies and lacewings. Below is a list of easy-to-grow annuals which both you, and the beneficial insects, can enjoy. Grow them all over the garden or allotment - to help keep flowers, fruit and vegetables pest-free.

  • Buckwheat Fagopyron esculentum
  • Californian poppy Eschscholtzia californica
  • Candytuft Iberis amara
  • Convolvulus, annual Convolvulus tricolor
  • Corn chamomile Anthemis arvensis
  • Corn marigold Chrysanthemum segetum
  
  Poached Egg Plant
  
  
  Sunflower
  • Cornflower Centaurea cyanus
  • Dill Anethum graveolens
  • French marigold Tagetes patula; Tagetes signata
  • Golden marguerite Anthemis tinctoria
  • Nemophila Nemophila spp
  • Phacelia Phacelia tanacetifolia
  • Poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii
  • Pot marigold Calendula officinalis
  • Sunflower Helianthus annuus
  • Sweet alyssum Lobularia maritima

  You can find seed of most of these flowers in the Organic Gardening Catalogue

  See our organic factsheet Attracting Beneficial Insects for more ways to entice more predators – available in the members' area of this website (requires members' password).

  See our other factsheets:

  • Flowers for the wildlife garden
  • Shrubs and climbers for the wildlife garden
  • Trees for the wildlife garden
  • Ladybirds
  • Lacewings
  Online access to our organic factsheets is password-restricted to Garden Organic members'.
  
  Find out about becoming a Garden Organic member here
  
  You can download the complete list of factsheets with order form (PDF document - 101Kb)
• Don’t forget to look after your nettle patch too!

  Did you know that the nettle supports over 40 species of insect including some of our most colourful butterflies?
  
  For even more interesting facts and uses for nettles, visit www.nettles.org.uk and get involved in 'National Be Nice to Nettles week' from 13th – 24th May 2009.

  For more information go to our 'Nettles' organic factsheet available in the members area of the Garden Organic website (members' password required). Alternatively, visit the Topical questions & answers section for more information on Butterfly larvae protection.
• Organic Gardening "Do's"

  A checklist for going organic in your garden

  For more detailed guidance on what is, and isn't organic, have a browse through the Garden Organic Guidelines