Allotment May 2026

My diary of activity was sparse this month as I haven’t had as much seed planting to monitor. So for this month’s post I’ve switched to listing tasks done by week beginning to give a rough idea of how the month went.

As we’re past the traditional hungry gap of April crops started to roll in, mostly autumn sown cauliflowers, cabbage, swiss chard, kale sprouting, as well as spring sown salad leaves and breakfast radishes.

I also shared my first set of allotmenting zines this month, available here. I’ve been printing a few each at a time and leaving them at the site, people have been taking them so that’s a good sign. I’ve handed some out in person too. Mastodon #allotment folk were positive about them too, I think it was Pete Ashton and Broadfork both said they printed some off for their allotment sites which was nice to hear 🙂

22nd – 24th May we had highs of 27C, the 25th and 26th were 32C, and then it was 24-28C for a few days after. Now at consistent temps ~20C high / ~10C low. But only a week or two before the heat hit we had low overnight temps. On 11th May we had overnight frost, I put some improvised protection down for my first early spuds but they still got caught. A dahlia got frost damage too (but has regrown since). So challenging conditions to keep plants alive. Moving young plants between under glass to outdoor shade was necessary.

W/c 4th:

• Cleared mulch piles from overwintering dahlias and placed cloches on top
• Mounded first earlies
• Planted grain amaranth seeds
• Removed and disposed of rose with virus symptoms
• Picked lots of kale sprouting
• Broad beans in flower along with chives, aquilegia, comfrey and poached egg plants
• First green strawberries spotted
• Put up bunting

W/c 11th:

• Planted second go at asters
• Dug new perennial flower bed and planted out giant scabious, macedonian scabious, hollyhocks, lavender, foxgloves so far
• Picked last of the autumn sown cauliflowers and cabbages
• Chopped back winter crops in greenhouses

W/c 18th:

• Started picking come-and-cut-again lettuce and perennial rocket as well as chive flowers
• Began climbing bean frames
• Finished construction of a standing insect hotel
• Thyme, geums, field poppies, snapdragons and chamomile in flower
• First damselflies spotted

W/c 25th:

• Planted climbing beans and outdoor tomatoes along with companion flowers (french marigolds and cosmos mostly)
• Mounded second earlies
• Added shop bought watercress to larger pond for additional surface cover
• First strawberries, breakfast radishes and sweet peas picked