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May 2022 new plantings, harvests more rare, many sowings in May, no dig allotment, companion and inter planting

Written by

Charles Dowding

Last Updated

April 29, 2022

It’s a third consecutive year of April being very dry. In fact since 17th March we have had just 24mm rain (an inch). We need to give more water than usual, especially to new transplants and salad vegetables. We can appreciate how no dig is excellent for moisture retention.

Harvests at this time of year are precious and we are almost in the hungry gap, when stored winter vegetables finish and many newly planted ones are not yet ready. Leafy vegetables come to the fore including spinach, lettuce and spring onion.

It has also been quite cold recently, with the continuing possibility of night frost. My greenhouse is now crammed full of tender plants which are better in there for at least a week, although there are signs of warmer weather ahead. Featured image is 30th April.

New Audiobook, my No Dig Gardening Course 1, spoken by me with plenty of improvisation and bringing it right up to date. Not that no dig changes much!

Keep checking growth under covers and here I decided to remove the fleece, it’s now five weeks since this bed was planted

Harvests of 21st April no dig garden — Harvests of 21st April are radish Rudi multisown February, spinach Medania and turnips Tokyo Cross F1 also multisown February, and overwintered salad onions White Lisbon plus Claret F1 broccoli

No dig is brilliant for ornamentals. Front garden flowers at Homeacres include Honesty and euphorbia, plus many forget-me-not which will soon finish and then we remove them before they drop too many seeds

Sowing and plant raising

Possible sowings this week include leeks, chard, beetroot, carrot, lettuce, celery and brassicas including cauliflower, cabbage and calabrese. In cooler regions, sow Brussels sprouts and kale. Here I sow Brussels around 8th-10th May.

You can sow salad onions any time, until and including July. Allow about ten weeks to maturity, depending on what size you like them.

It’s still fine to plant potatoes, my video shows a no dig method for that.

Sow courgettes and squash in warmth, for transplanting outside after mid May, when it’s warmer.
Sow cucumbers for growing under cover, if you have not already.

This is the kind of advice we are giving in the weekly email called When What How.

Adam is tipping grass clippings on top of the hotbed, to maintain heat at 40 to 45 C for another 10 days or so

There is a wooden frame on top of the heap's contents and the plants sit on that, these include aubergines, melons, and cucumbers at the back — There is a wooden frame on top of the heap’s contents and the plants sit on that, these include aubergines, melons, and cucumbers at the back

Newly sown squash for summer and winter, in CD60 trays, then we spread a little compost over and keep them as warm as possible until seeing first leaves

Transplanting under cover

I dared to set out some tomatoes this week, Sungolds which had grown very fast from sowing in the second week of March. We bury strings with knotted ends under the root balls, but have not tied them to the wires above because overnight they are covered with fleece, in case of frost. I interplant dwarf French marigolds for beauty and aphid reduction.

Sungold just planted, after the annual spread of 4cm compost which was mostly horse manure one year old

Tomato plants fleeced, mainly by night. Much of the polytunnel still has plants of winter salad which have been cropping since November, and will soon finish. The garlic continues until about 10th June

Flowering plants include poppy for bread seed and dahlias from my own seed, they started in CD module cells and we potted them to 7 cm pots

Interplants / companions

Plants like being close to (companion with) other plants, especially when they’re small. Intersowing, interplanting and multisowing are all variations of companion planting, as in these photos.

On 14th March I sowed carrots across the bed with just a few radish in the drills. The latter need to be harvested now and will be gone by next week. It does not disturb the carrots when you ease them out.

Multisown turnips Tokyo Cross F1 outside, sown mid February and transplanted mid March, fleece over for one month

We planted shallot bulbs between overwintered cabbage which has now almost finished. On the right are interplanted Florence fennel and kohlrabi, both for June harvest before they flower

How to pick 1, overwintered vegetables

Purple sprouting broccoli is finishing, with new shoots being thinner with every passing week and then they become quite stringy. I’ve twisted out about a third of the plants already, and next week many others will finish.

Cauliflower on the other hand is a single harvest and they are suddenly cropping all at once! Aalsmeer, sown late August.

Outdoor garlic comes ready towards the end of June. It has been in the ground since October, cloves from homegrown garlic.

Claret broccoli has been giving beautiful shoots for three weeks, but new ones are now quite small, this plant was sown in June — Claret F1 broccoli has been giving beautiful shoots for three weeks, but new ones are now quite small, this plant was sown in June

Aalsmeer cauliflower in late April, eight months since it was sown in a seed tray in the greenhouse, transplanted 26th September at 50cm and covered with mesh ever since

Garlic from home saved seed (cloves) planted mid October after summer beans, soil covered with old cow manure & a little green waste compost

How to pick 2, salad plants

Mostly we harvest by gently twisting off outer leaves, which allows plants to grow back rapidly, and to live for a long time. Current harvests of sweet leaves of Medania spinach are from plants sown last August, for example.

An exception is wild rocket which I cut as you can see in the photograph. It has too many small stems to pick individually and regrows amazingly well after cutting

Lettuce have been under fleece since transplanting six weeks ago, first pick this morning 29th April

We picked these lettuce of outer leaves just five days earlier, they could be picked again from now, and every few days through spring into summer

I took a first cut of wild rocket three weeks earlier, variety Athene sown September and transplanted February

How to pick 3, multi or single sown fun

Cauliflower need to be harvested as soon as you see them fully grown, because soon after that they grow upwards and become broccoli!

Carefully twist out the largest roots of any multisown clump, such as radish or turnips at this time of year. This allows the remaining plants to continue growing and extends your period of harvest.

The third photo below is a total nice example of my no knead bread!

With Aalsmeer cauliflower sown 25.8 and after 6kg lettuce harvest from the bed behind me, sixth consecutive year of lettuce in the same bed, photo Adam Wood

A day course about no dig in Charles Dowding's Somerset garden, see the bed prep, propagation, vegetables, covers and how to make compost — Larger turnip roots from each clump, Tokyo Cross F1, photo Alessandro Vitale

This bread is quick and simple to make, simply mixed by spoon with the sourdough starter, spooned into tins to rise overnight and baked in the morning. The flour is fresh ground in my little mill, 100% rye, photo Bryony Plant

Stored potato, new asparagus and beans

We harvested a fair few tops of the broad bean plants for eating over winter. To clear some of them now I cut them just below ground level, to leave the root system in place (food for microbes) and make space for the asparagus now growing.

Stored potatoes from last summer are a valuable part of our diet in May, after rubbing off the shoots.

I planted asparagus crowns one year ago, and in December we transplanted broad beans, now I just cleared the middle part where the asparagus is

The first spears are just appearing, and I shall probably leave the beans for harvest of seed

Linzer Delikatess, 9 months since last summer's harvest and they have been in the paper sack in the building behind, still taste delicious — Linzer Delikatess, 9 months since last summer’s harvest and they have been in the paper sack in the building behind, still taste delicious

No dig allotment

This is by Emma Kane, near here. She works two days a week at Homeacres, it’s now full time gardening after being a physiotherapist. She took on the allotment 1st April and worked hard with her partner to smother the weeds!