What to do in the garden in May in portugal.

The time to plant summer vegetables is upon us, if not already here. If you haven’t got everything read its time to drop what you are doing, buy your seedlings or seeds and get planting!

1. Planting seeds in the greenhouse

• Don’t forget to plant a succession of fast-growing vegetables, such as beets and lettuce. Better to plant a few each month and so many at once, and then you don’t know what to do with them.
• By now, you should have all your vegetables in the ground or be about to get them in the ground. If you haven’t prepared them, I recommend buying seedlings and planting them to catch up

2. Direct seeding in the ground

1. Continue planting things you want to harvest each month, such as lettuce and beetroots, but Spinach, rocket and coriander will start to struggle
2. Time to plant everything that grows in the summer that you direct plant.
3. Black eye peas (feijão frade) Local elders say: que o feijão frade quando nascer não gosta de ver o sol de maio
4. Por norma o pessoal semeia sempre na última semana de maio – Black-eyed beans (cowpeas) don’t like to see the May sun when they first sprout

3. Planting seedlings out

1. Plant out everything except your winter vegetables such as garlic, peas and broad beans
2. It says on seed packets that you shouldn’t plant brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and turnips now). But i seem to always get another harvest if planted out now.

4. Farm and Garden maintenance in April

• Prepare your summer beds, we are cutting back cover crops and rotivating them in
• Repotting summer veg that we are not planting out yet into bigger pots
• Preparing our trellices for tomatoes, cucumbers, luffa
• Checking all our irrigation is in tact after all the winter strumming and making holes in them
• Preparing mulch
• We are also cutting fire wood ready for next year while it is still cool
• Finishing off land clearance for fire breaks for the summer

Join our mailing list for monthly gardening ideas in Portugal

Email Address Submit