When to Plant Vegetables – A Fantastic Vegetable Planting Calendar

More and more people in the UK are deciding that they fancy having a go at growing their own vegetables.

The only problem is: where do you start? And, more importantly – when.

Because the time of year you start planting really matters. And with so many vegetable options to choose from, it can be difficult to know what to do first, given what month it is and your own veggie preferences.

To simplify the entire process, here’s a vegetable planting calendar for the UK. You can use this handy crop calendar to see what your options are and when might be a good time to get your new vegetable garden off the ground.

Read on, if you:

• are wondering what veggies you can grow and harvest in different months.
• are a newbie gardener who needs some expert vegetable growing advice.
• just want to spend more time in your garden and eat organic food. 

January

One of the coldest months, January is a time when only the toughest of the tough vegetables can be planted or sown. Anything you put into the soil outside in January is going to have to survive chills, frost, and potentially snow, too. That doesn’t leave you many options, with only things like beans and peas being hardy enough to be planted at this time of year.

This also means it’s time to harvest the more delicate plants you’ve been growing earlier in the year so that they can be placed “safely” on your dining room table when it starts getting colder.

On the plus side, if you’ve got some growing space indoors, January is a great time of year to get planting. You’ve got a whole lot of options if your house is your garden, so to speak.

February

Even more of that good stuff you’ve been planting all year comes out of the ground in February. With an even higher risk of frost and snow than January, you really want to be rescuing those tasty vegetables before the cold can do its work.

But a couple of root vegetables – parsnips, carrots, and radishes – can join the broad beans in the soil even outside at this time of year.

For interior growers, your options are even more widespread the January. There’s a lot of healthy salad items – in particular cucumber, lettuce, and tomatoes – which will start to grow happily at this time of year as long as they’re nice and safe inside.

March

If January and February were slightly limited months in terms of what you could be growing, March is quite the opposite.

As we begin to roll towards springtime, the days are starting to get longer, the temperature is starting to climb (well, a little bit at least!) and you can really get planting in your vegetable garden.

April

Not only is the weather in the UK usually confidently into its Spring-time mode by April, but this very special month also brings with it the classic “April showers”.

These are stellar conditions as far as your vegetable garden is concerned, making April’s list of growing options the longest yet for both indoors and outdoors.

May

By May we’ve reached the optimum Spring planting season for dozens of vegetables. Root veg like carrots and parsnips. Pak choi, spinach, and sweetcorn. Beetroot, courgettes, and even pumpkins (even though you might not be feeling the spirit of Halloween very strongly yet!).

The real challenge of growing things at this time of year is remembering what you’ve put where and when, especially if your garden’s on the larger side! Make sure you have some sort of system in place to record what you’ve been planting and when you think it should come out.

June

With (hopefully) balmy sunny days and long evenings, June is the perfect time to be pottering about in your garden. And that’s good news! Because you’ll find you often have a lot of things to take care of.

Not only are there plenty of vegetables you can plant in June, but there’s also a lot that will be ready to be harvested.

July

By July, we’re fully into harvesting season if you’ve been planting and growing diligently throughout the rest of the year. It’s time for your vegetable plot to start repaying your hard work with some tasty crops. This harvesting trend continues to accelerate into August.

August

More harvesting in August means you should be able to keep yourself well-stocked with vegetables if you planted enough.

You still have some planting options if you haven’t managed to get anything into the soil yet this year. Lots of green veg like spinach, cabbage, pak choi, lettuce, and kale are happy to get bedded down at this time of year.

Like in July and June, though, there aren’t really any good vegetables to be planted inside. But with the weather theoretically at its height in terms of sun and temperature, what better way to spend the time than relaxing in your garden, watching those veggies grow?

September

In September, you can sow some radishes or spring onions outside. But there’s not a lot else that can go down. There is a whole lot that you should be thinking about harvesting, though.

October

As we edge ever closer to winter, more harvesting is the order of the day. Your planting options for October are back to being limited to hardy broad beans and peas again.

You will mainly want to be concentrating on harvesting everything and preparing your garden for the colder months.

November

With the year drawing to a close, you might still have some veggies you planted late coming out of the ground. But not much should be going back in.

You’ve got the option of the good old broad beans and peas once more outside. Inside, you can grow lettuce and onions at this time of year as they won’t mind the reduced daylight hours.

Everything else needs to be coming out rather than going in.

December

Things remain pretty much the same as in November as we gradually creep closer to Christmas. There might be some final vegetables just falling over the harvest-ready finishing line still left in your garden. It’s time to look forward to spring!

Takeaways:

• Plant indoors as well as outdoors to get maximum growth potential
• Hardy broad beans, peas, lettuce and onions can be planted even during the winter months
• Planting season can start before spring – many things can go in the ground even in cold months like January and February, ready for harvesting later
• As you can see in your veg calendar, March and April are prime planting and growing season
• Autumn is when you generally need to start thinking about harvesting most of your crop in preparation for winter

So, now that you know when to sow different veggies, why not go one step further and learn when to perform other garden care tasks? Find out more with the help of our monthly gardening calendar!

***

Did you find our vegetable planting calendar useful? What veggies would you like to grow? Feel free to share with us your favourite veggies in the comment section below.

Image source: Shutterstock / gpointstudio