A Simple Calendar for Your Garden

Here is a basic calendar of the essential jobs you need to do each month to ensure your garden is both attractive and productive. Depending on how far north or south you live in the UK, you may need to vary this calendar one way or the other by a week or two.

January

• Plan your garden layout and jobs for the year and order seeds and plants
• Prune fruit trees and soft fruit bushes
• Plant out onion sets and garlic

February

• Clean decking, terraces and paths
• Cut back shrubbery
• Sow annual flowers and early vegetables in the greenhouse
• Give your shed a spring clean to ensure everything is in order for the new gardening year

March

• If there is no snow or frost, give your lawn its first cut of the year with the blades on a high setting
• Plant out early potatoes
• Sow hardy annual flowers outdoors

April

• Spread mulch on flower beds and around trees and bushes
• Sow tender plants in greenhouse or conservatory
• Apply spring feed and moss killer to lawns
• Clean down your garden furniture and barbecue ready for use

May

• Protect fruit bushes from birds
• Earth up rows of potatoes
• Sow beans and courgettes outdoors
• Your lawn mower blades can be lowered for a closer cut now

June

• Protect plants from slugs, snails and greenfly
• Plant out tender bedding plants
• If the weather is dry, keep your containers and hanging baskets well watered
• Harvest first early potatoes and salad crops

July

• By now your vegetables should be thriving and your flowers and shrubs alive with colour. Keep them that way with regular watering and weeding
• Harvest your first beans, brassicas and greenhouse tomatoes
• Remove dead heads from blooms to encourage further flowering

August

• Keep watering and weeding as necessary
• Enjoy the main harvest of your spring plantings
• Lift and dry onions and garlic
• This is a good time of year to trim your hedges

September

• Divide and replant your larger flowering perennial plants
• Aerate, repair and feed your lawn
• Lift and store main crop potatoes, squash and pumpkins
• Plant spring-flowering bulbs

October

• Remove dead foliage and rake up fallen leaves
• If you do not already have one, buy or construct a compost bin
• Double dig vegetable beds and apply manure or other organic fertilizer

November

• Give all your tools a good cleaning and oiling before storing for the winter
• Plant out any new shrubs and trees you require for next year
• Give your greenhouse a thorough cleaning and remove and replace the used compost
• Invest in a water butt or two to collect rainwater as it runs off your shed and greenhouse

December

• Apply manure around fruit trees
• Plant out new fruit bushes
• Protect containers housing your prized perennials from frost with horticultural fleece
• Cover vegetable beds with horticultural sheeting to suppress weeds and warm up the soil for spring seeds planting.

The Author:

Graeme is writing on behalf of Kings Seeds – Tomato Seeds & Seed Potatoes

Photo. Anna Shvets

Source: EA