May, the Payoff Month

May is the payoff month — the point where all that windowsill-tray effort turns into an actual garden. Just watch for a late frost before you commit the tender stuff outdoors.

Sow now (outdoors)

French and runner beans, sweetcorn, courgettes, squash and pumpkins can go direct once frost risk has properly passed. Continue successional salad, beetroot, and carrot sowings.

Plant out

This is the big one: tomatoes, courgettes, squash, sweetcorn, and any tender bedding, once you’re confident the last frost has been and gone. Dahlias. Hanging baskets and containers.

Harvest

Early salad leaves, radishes, spring onions, and the first rhubarb of the season in earnest.

Prune

Spring bulbs’ foliage can be cut back once it’s fully yellowed. Early-flowering clematis after flowering.

General jobs

Start a proper watering routine as things warm up — new plantings especially need consistency now. Stake or support anything that’ll need it before it’s fully grown (peas, tall dahlias, tomatoes). Keep succession-sowing salads and beans. If you’re growing a meadow, leave it uncut through May and into summer — that’s not neglect, it’s the entire point, giving flowers time to bloom and set seed (the same idea behind “No Mow May”).

This weekend

Before you plant out anything tender, check your local last-frost date — it’s tempting to rush after a warm week, but one cold night can undo a month of raising seedlings.

Timing shifts by region — the North, Scotland, and Northern Ireland often see their last frost 2–3 weeks later than the South.