Saturday & Sunday · The Gardening Hub
Weekend Gardening
What to plant now, the easiest veg to grow, and the weekend jobs that actually matter — honest, tried-it advice for UK families, from Linda Garrould.
Right now, in late June and into July, you can still sow salad leaves, radishes, beetroot, carrots, dwarf French beans and spring onions straight into the ground — and there’s just time for one last batch of runner beans. If you’re starting from scratch, begin with the crops that are hard to get wrong: salad, courgettes, peas and a bag of potatoes will all reward a beginner this summer.
This is our gardening home — the month-by-month jobs, the veg worth your time, and the honest version where we tell you what died on us too. It’s written for the whole household: serious growers, weekend dabblers, and children who mainly want to dig. Pull up a chair; the kettle’s on.
In the garden this October
| Sow now | Plant now | Harvest |
|---|---|---|
| Overwintering broad beans and hardy peas, sweet peas under cover, winter salads under cover, green manure on empty beds | Garlic, autumn onion sets and shallots, spring cabbages, daffodils and other spring bulbs (tulips wait for November), wallflowers | Maincrop potatoes, apples and pears, squash and pumpkins, the last tomatoes and beans, autumn raspberries, chard, leeks |
Bring the tender plants in first. October is when the first frost arrives for much of the country, so this is the month’s one urgent job: pelargoniums, fuchsias, citrus and anything else frost-tender should be under cover by your bring-in date. Put your postcode into the tool below for yours, or read our full guide to frost dates by postcode for the town-by-town dates, a map and what to bring in when.
Sow and plant: autumn-sown broad beans (‘Aquadulce Claudia’ is the classic) and hardy peas get a head start on spring; garlic wants a cold spell to split into cloves, so plant it now (our garlic guide has the spacing); and daffodils go in this month, tulips next. A bag of bulbs planted this weekend is the cheapest way to buy yourself a better March.
Harvest: lift maincrop potatoes on a dry day and let them dry before storing; cut squash and pumpkins with a length of stalk and leave them in the sun for a week or two to harden their skins, but bring them in before the frost. Pick the last tomatoes green and ripen them indoors, and pick apples when they come away with a gentle twist.
This weekend’s jobs: wait for the first frost to blacken dahlia leaves before you lift the tubers; rake leaves into a wire cage or a bin bag with a few holes for leaf mould next year; wash the greenhouse glass and pin up bubble insulation; give the lawn its last cut and spike it with a fork; and leave seedheads standing for the birds, and a corner of the garden untidy for the hedgehogs.
Frost dates where you live
Your last spring frost and first autumn frost, for your own postcode: when it’s safe to plant tender plants out, and when to bring them back in. Worked out from Met Office daily temperature records on a 1km grid, 2009–2023. How we work these out
Start here: guides our readers come back to
The easiest vegetables to grow in the UK
If you’ve never grown a thing, start here. These crops are forgiving, quick to reward, and genuinely worth a windowsill or a patch of soil. We’ve left tomatoes off the “easy” list on purpose — they’re the most rewarding thing you’ll grow and the most likely to test your patience; there’s a whole guide for them.
- Salad leaves — sow a short row every fortnight and never buy a bag again.
- Radishes — ready in four weeks; fast enough to keep a six-year-old interested.
- Courgettes — one or two plants is plenty; three is a glut and a lesson.
- Dwarf French beans — no support, no fuss; easier than thirsty runner beans.
- Peas — sweetest eaten raw at the row; mostly a spring sowing.
- Beetroot — sow direct, thin once, roast in autumn.
- Chard / perpetual spinach — cut-and-come-again for months; shrugs off neglect.
- Spring onions — quick, shallow-rooted, happy in a trough.
- Potatoes in a bag — the most fun a beginner can have; tip it out like treasure.
- Herbs — chives, parsley and mint (mint in a pot, always).
Short of space or just starting? A few good plug plants beat a failed tray of seedlings. Gardening Direct delivers plants and seeds to the door — though a £2 packet of salad seed and a sunny sill will out-earn an awful lot of supermarket leaves.
New to gardening? The bits nobody tells you
Feed the soil, not the plant. Good ground does most of the work — a barrow of compost or well-rotted manure forked over (or simply laid on top, the no-dig way) beats any bottle of feed. Get this right and everything else is easier.
Sun matters. Most veg wants six hours of it; leafy crops and herbs will forgive a bit of shade. Sowing versus planting out: seeds go in where the packet says; young plants harden off for a week before they brave the open garden. Watering: deep and less often, so roots chase the moisture down. And the three first-year mistakes we all make — sowing the whole packet at once, forgetting the pots in a hot week, and planting squash far too close together. Plant fewer things, better.
Grow it together this weekend
The quickest way to get a child gardening is a crop they can see winning. Radishes and cress reward them in a fortnight; a runner-bean wigwam turns a Saturday into a whole summer of watching; and a pot of strawberries by the back door rarely makes it as far as the kitchen. Our month-by-month kids’ guides have a plan for each school holiday: June, July and the half-term starter.
Garden to kitchen. The point of a courgette glut is dinner. When the harvest lands faster than you can eat it, our recipes are where to start, and our freezing guides help you keep the rest. A tool site can tell you when to sow; we’ll tell you what to cook on the Sunday.
Grow your own: our latest gardening guides
When to Prune Lavender, and How Far to Cut It Back
When to Prune Apple Trees: A UK Guide for Every Kind of Tree
Hedgehog house: where to put it, which to buy, and how to build one before they go down for winter
Drought-Tolerant Plants for UK Gardens: A Mediterranean Garden That Survives Winter
When to Plant Garlic in the UK for the Best Harvest
Growing Tomatoes From Seed: A Step-by-Step UK Guide
Growing Tomatoes: A Beginner’s Guide to a Bumper Crop
The Best Trailing Plants for Baskets, Walls and Window Boxes
Raised Beds for Vegetables: The Easy Way to Grow Your Own
Small Front Garden Ideas to Transform a Compact Space
The Best House Plants for Every Room (and How to Keep Them Alive)
When to Prune Hydrangeas: Get Bigger Blooms Every Year
Rather visit than dig? Gardens worth the drive
Some of the best gardening happens in someone else’s garden, with a cup of tea and no weeding — and we’re building this into a proper guide to the gardens worth the trip, RHS gardens included. Many of the very best are free, and if you visit two or three a year, National Trust or RHS membership pays for itself — RHS currently has 30% off for new members (12 months for the price of 8, until 6 September 2026); take a picnic and skip the café. Want to make a weekend of it? Sykes Holiday Cottages has places to stay near many of Britain’s great gardens.
Books for gardeners
From the gardeners you watch and listen to
The voices you trust on a Friday night and a Sunday afternoon — in print. A rotating shelf of recent books from the Gardeners’ World team and the Gardeners’ Question Time panel:
Two evergreen essentials
Most of these turn up in charity shops within a year of publication — no shame in a second-hand Monty. See also our Monty Don reading list.
Gardening magazines
What the keen gardener actually reads — and a subscription is a quietly generous present for one. Our pick is Amateur Gardening, the UK’s long-running practical fortnightly: all this-week’s-jobs and plant know-how, now published by Kelsey.
Amateur Gardening
The UK’s longest-running weekly gardening title — seasonal jobs, expert answers and plant inspiration, every fortnight. A print-and-digital bundle works out better value than single issues, and it lands all year round.
Also worth a read on the newsagent’s shelf: BBC Gardeners’ World, Grow Your Own and Kitchen Garden.
Gardening on TV and radio
Two national institutions and the calendar of the gardening year. Here’s what’s on.
Gardeners’ World
Monty Don and the team, week by week through the growing year. We keep an archive of our notes from Gardeners’ World if you missed an episode.
Gardeners’ Question Time
A panel, a village hall and someone’s mystery shrub. Seventy years on, the format hasn’t changed and is all the better for it.
Broadcast times shown above update automatically; if in doubt, check BBC Sounds or iPlayer for this week’s schedule.
This season’s offers
- Gardening Direct — plants and seeds delivered; better value than the garden centre for filling a bed.
- QD Stores — tools, compost and sundries at sensible prices (and ours, here in the East of England).
- Gardenista — cushions to make the most of the garden once the work’s done.
- Big Green Smile — peat-free compost and natural slug control for an organic patch.
Gardening questions, answered
What can I plant right now in the UK?
It depends on the month. In October and November: garlic, autumn onion sets, overwintering broad beans and hardy peas, and spring bulbs. From March to May: salads, peas, beetroot, carrots and potatoes outside, with tomatoes, courgettes and beans sown indoors for planting out after your last frost. In June and July: salad leaves, radishes, beetroot, carrots, chard and dwarf French beans straight into the ground. See “in the garden this October” above for the full list.
What are the easiest vegetables to grow for beginners?
Salad leaves, radishes, courgettes, dwarf French beans, beetroot, chard, spring onions and potatoes in a bag are the most forgiving. Start with three or four rather than a whole plot.
Is it cheaper to grow your own veg?
For cut-and-come-again salad, herbs, courgettes and beans, easily — a packet of seed costs less than one supermarket bag. For maincrop potatoes and onions, less so; grow those for flavour and the pleasure, not the savings.
What can I grow in pots or a small garden?
Salad, herbs, spring onions, chard, dwarf beans, strawberries and potatoes in a bag all do well in containers. Pick the biggest pots you can and keep them watered — small pots dry out fast.
Do I need a greenhouse to grow vegetables?
No. A sunny windowsill starts most seeds, and a cold frame extends the season at a fraction of the cost. A greenhouse is a lovely luxury, not a requirement.
What’s the quickest vegetable to grow?
Radishes — sowing to plate in about four weeks — with salad leaves and rocket close behind.
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