With temperatures in the UK warming up its time to check your pots and do some thinning out on fruit trees and bushes.

Here are some things you need to do at the beginning of May.

• Feed and water plants as required
• Thin out plants and shoots as needed. Especially fruit trees and bushes.
• Check for pests or disease in your greenhouse
• Shade delicate plants from the mid day sun
• Don’t cut your lawn or water during the heat of the day
• Remove moss and weeds from paths
• Use mulch while you can still see between your plants

If you care for your garden now you will reap the rewards during the summer months.

We moved home recently so we had a whole new garden to get our fingers dirty in. This, whilst quite daunting, proved a superb challenge and has left us feeling really proud of the results.

One problem we did have however was the hard landscaping. The property had an old driveway that needed replacing and the structure of the garden needed breaking up and redesigning. Because of the heavy lifting and the skills needed we had to hire the services of professionals to do the job for us.

Going on a recommendation, we chose a local firm who were only too happy to help. But the mess created and the amount of soil and other excess garden detritus removed, left us wondering what would have happened if we didn’t go for the hard landscaping before we got to the finer points of flowers and design.

We all know too well what an effect the exceedingly cold winter has had on our gardens and allotments. Well, news reaches us from the National Trust Bluebell Watch that the bluebells we expect to be seeing around about now are in fact not going to appear until May.

The warm winters and springs over the last few years has meant bluebells appearing as early as the first of April last year. The National Trust say that this year the bluebells are likely to all come into flower at once for a shorter period than usual. We can’t wait till the bluebells come out at the bottom of our allotment, why don’t you let us know when yours start to flower.

Good new for allotmenteers in Manchester. Thousands of pounds that has been collected from criminals has been donated by the police’s payback scheme is being given to an allotment project in Wigan.

The Norley Hall allotments will get about £5,000 to spend on a project to help youngsters who have been involved in anti social behaviour to give a little something back. They will grow produce and flowers which will be given to local victims of crime.

The scheme has been running for a while now and the area has seen a notable decrease in petty crime and anti social behaviour as a direct result.

The thing about having a garden is that it’s not just all hard work. When the sun shines, as it occasionally does in the UK, we look forward to reaping the rewards for all our hard work.

The weather has been dismal over the last few months so we are really looking forward to the sunny weather that is forecast for this weekend. We might even cut the grass!!!!

Even if you are a gardening novice you will appreciate how great it is to sit in your garden on a warm sunny day with a cold drink in one hand and your current read in the other. We are not pessimistic but we think we might invest in a good set of garden furniture this year. And a parasol to catch the drops of rain once we fire up the barbecue.

Just when we thought that spring had finally arrived, the heavens opened and destroyed just about all the seedlings we had planted out - a day in the life of the allotment gardener.

With the winter in the UK proving to be one of the worst in decades we thought that by the end of March we should be safe in the knowledge that things wouldn’t show a downturn, how wrong were we!

In hindsight there are things you can do to stop calamitites like this:

1. Start your seedlings under cloches or in the greenhouse where they are not susceptible to excessive rain or wind.
2. Plant out only established plants that will be able to take a degree of bad weather.
3. Be ready with covers if the weather starts to turn.

You will always lose a few seedlings in the early months of spring, especially in the UK. But when the weather finally gets better the fruits of your labour will finally be rewarded.

The end of March is the perfect time to start sowing your Sweet Peas. You can start them off in late autumn but if you start them now you will lose less germinating plants because of exceptionally cold weather or pests.

Sow the seeds about ½ inch deep in a large tray filled loosely with seed compost. Don’t be tempted to push the seeds down. Then make sure they are watered regularly. If you place them on a heated sill or green house bench they will germinate in around 12 days. When the first two pairs of leaves show, pinch out the upper tips to encourage strong root growth. You can plant them out in late April or May depending on the weather.

Chitting potatoes is an allotmenteering institution. It must be done every year and it must be done properly.

When you but your seed potatoes it is no good to just put them in the ground, they need to be kept in a cool light place for their eyes to start sprouting. This can take anywhere up to around two weeks to happen.

When the eyes have sprouted you will notice about 6-10 shoots from the potato – now is the perfect time to sow them. If you want a few large good quality potatoes it can be a good idea to rub off a few of the sprouts so only about 3 or 4 shoots take. Otherwise leave them all on and harvest the small potatoes early for lots of yummy early spuds.

After a cold winter it can take a great deal of effort to get out in the garden before the true start of spring. You may have noticed a few snowdrops and daffodils starting to peep through the earth and with Easter now only a few weeks away the time is nigh to remove those winter cobwebs and get gardening.

With ground frost still a distinct possibility you can still do essential jobs for the year ahead. Two of the first of these are the regular clean of teh greenhouse and shed. Keeping these two essential items well organised and free from clutter will mean that teh year ahead will run much more smoothly.

If you fancy getting your fingers dirty after the cleaning why not start to sow some early tomatoes in the greenhouse. If you sow them now your first crop will be in mid to late June, perfect for that summer salad

If you haven’t already decided which crops to sow this year, then there is no time like the present. You can order your seeds online now and they shouldn’t take too long to arrive. If you have been following a strict crop rotation pattern over the last few years, you might already have planned your beds for the coming year. If not, here are a few ideas of crops that you can start off with now so you can enjoy yummy veg over the coming few months.

If you warm the soil using cloches or even black plastic and are sure that frost is not going to strike your crops down before they get started, you can plant - broad beans, leeks, onions, shallots, peas, parsnips, spinach, carrots, lettuce and Brussels sprouts out now. Make sure you dig in some well rotted compost from your compost heap before you start and you will soon see the shoots starting to emerge.