Gardeners' notes - jobs to do in May
Grow basil
Sow basil seeds for a tasty addition to your kitchen garden – they make a great companion crop for tomatoes. The aromatic compounds in basil are thought to deter pests, plus they enjoy similar growing conditions.
There are quite a few different varieties of basil to choose from: sweet basil is the most common, but you can also grow Thai basil, Greek basil, or basil with lemon, lime or cinnamon flavours. Some have really attractive purple leaves too, like ‘Crimson King’ or ‘Red Rubin’.
Grow your own from seed, sowing into moist peat-free compost and placing on a warm, bright windowsill. Prick out seedlings into individual pots and pinch out tips to encourage bushy plants. Alternatively, if you buy a pot of basil from the supermarket, you can split the multiple stems and replant, to make more plants for free.
Basil loves warm conditions, but doesn’t like its soil to get too dry, so regular watering is important. Pinch out any flowering stems to maintain leaf quality. Keep picking leaves to use in the kitchen – pair with some of those tomatoes for a simple and delicious snack.
Chelsea chop
It’s almost time for the event they call the world’s greatest flower show – RHS Chelsea – and that means it’s also time to consider the Chelsea chop. This is a pruning technique carried out in late spring, around the same time as this esteemed horticultural event, which can help to encourage bushier plants and delay flowering for a better, later display.
The Chelsea chop can push back blooms by four to six weeks for some perennials, so consider pruning back all the stems to achieve this, or you can compromise by cutting back selectively, leaving half to flower now and half to flower later.
Of course, you may decide not to chop anything at all, which is perfectly fine, though you may find some plants become rather leggy or floppy by midsummer, and could finish flowering earlier than you might wish.
Plants that are perfect candidates for the Chelsea chop include: phlox, achillea, sedums, asters, echinacea and heleniums.
Strawberries
A little extra care for your strawberries now will get them in great shape for harvesting in the coming weeks. Remove any dead or damaged leaves and weed around the base of the plants. A general purpose fertiliser on the soil surface will keep them well fed while they develop fruit, and a mulch of fresh straw can be beneficial. Straw helps lift the fruit off the surface of the soil, keeping them clean and making it harder for slugs to reach them.
Finally, if you can provide a cage of netting around the plants this will prevent birds from eating your delicious strawberries before you get a chance to even pick them!
