May has to be one of my favourite months of the year, not just because it often has more reliable weather than August, or because two bank holidays give the luxury of a couple of long weekends (although the reliable weather thing doesn’t usually extend to cover the British Bank Holidays as we are often made only too aware!). No, my reason for loving May is the sight of masses of vegetable plant seedlings bursting forth from the depths of their warm compost beds.
My mini greenhouse is full of recycled pots and containers with healthy seedlings and young plants and thinking of the potential leafy greens, brassicas, beans, beetroot, carrots, corn and more that I could be harvesting and enjoying in the next few months is very exciting.
This year has seen us make a difficult decision to hand back our two allotments and take to growing in our garden among the plants; a decision borne from a number of things including frustration at persistent thefts from our plot, wanting to experiment with seeing how productive a small garden can be, and trying to juggle busy lives packed with more activities than there are hours in the day. It will also be good knowing that two more local people will be able to grow their own while we continue with our back garden growing – much in the style of Alys Fowler, author of The Thrifty Gardener and presenter of the recent BBC series, The Edible Garden.
So as a result, my bank holiday weekend will likely be spent planting out a variety of vegetables, including constructing a pea and bean tunnel (I’ll let you know how that goes!) and getting the next lot of seeds in for a constant supply of fresh home grown vegetables into the season. My only regret so far with the new back garden veg plot plan is that the late frosts and cold weather were my excuse for not getting more seeds in earlier, as I could have been enjoying some early carrots, spring onions and lettuce as well as my army of raddish plants… but that gives me something to improve on next year!
Months of preparation are beginning to pay off as the first real crops are maturing at the allotment. From the time when the tiny seeds were planted in seed trays and tended daily to see how they progressed, to planting them out in raised beds or their specific areas at the allotment, it has been a journey with both triumphs and failures and lessons learnt for next year. Growing your own vegetables is at its most rewarding however when you can begin to pick your crops and enjoy meals made up of your own fresh homegrown fruit and veg.
I always think there is little more satisfying than planting a seed in a pot of compost, nurturing it with warmth and water, and waiting for the day when the tips of those two first little leaves poke their way through the soil into the light. Every day when returning from the office, I make my way down the alleyway like a child at Christmas to see how much the little family of seedlings has grown, and whether there are any new plants making their tentative first look at the world above the compost.