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 month
| Sow now | Plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|
| Salad leaves, radishes, beetroot, carrots, spring onions, chard, turnips, dwarf French beans | Leeks, kale, purple-sprouting broccoli, winter cabbage, courgettes & squash still in pots | Strawberries, courgettes, broad beans, peas, early potatoes, gooseberries, currants, garlic |
Sow now, straight into the soil: salad leaves and rocket (a short row every fortnight keeps you in leaves all summer), radishes, beetroot, carrots, spring onions, chard, turnips and dwarf French beans. Early July is your last sensible shout for runner and climbing French beans.
Plant out: leeks, winter brassicas — kale, purple-sprouting broccoli, January King cabbage — and any courgettes or squash still waiting in pots. Give the squash more room than feels reasonable; they always win.
Harvest: strawberries, the first courgettes, broad beans, peas, early potatoes, gooseberries and currants — and lift the garlic once its leaves yellow and flop (our garlic guide covers curing and storing). Pick courgettes small and often — turn your back for a week and you’ll be making chutney.
A note on the heat: lettuce, rocket and summer radish bolt fast in a hot, dry spell — sow short rows in a little afternoon shade and keep them watered, or they run to seed before they reach the plate.
This weekend’s jobs: water deeply and less often — a good soak beats a daily sprinkle — and mulch to lock the moisture in; feed tomatoes weekly with a high-potash feed and pinch out the side shoots on cordon varieties; deadhead roses and sweet peas to keep them coming; net the soft fruit before the blackbirds do it for you; and hoe weeds off on a dry day. In warm, muggy spells, keep half an eye on potatoes and tomatoes for the first signs of blight. Going away? Group the pots in the shade, soak them well, and a kind neighbour beats any gadget.
A 90p packet of cut-and-come-again salad sown now will keep you in leaves into the autumn — for less than the price of a single bag from the chiller.
When can I plant out where I live?
Enter your postcode for your local last-frost date — the safe time to move tender plants outside, based on 15 years of Met Office data for your area.
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
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
When to Prune Roses: A Month-by-Month Guide for UK Gardens
Small Garden Ideas: 30 Clever Ways to Make the Most of a Tiny Plot
What to Plant in July in the UK: A Weekend Family Gardening Guide
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?
In June and July you can still sow salad leaves, radishes, beetroot, carrots, chard, spring onions and dwarf French beans straight into the ground, with one last sowing of runner beans by early July. See “in the garden this month” 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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