Every bed in the veg garden is absolutely packed right now, steaming full speed ahead into summer. I’m already enjoying the first delicious harvests of tender baby broad beans and buttery new potatoes. But I’m not going to sit on my laurels for long: now is the month to pull out the seed trays again for a second round of sowing, keeping me picking flowers and harvesting veg into autumn and beyond.
More seed sowing advice:
June seed sowing inspiration
Plants featured in this video
Pak choi
I love the crisp, juicy texture and umami flavours of pak choi, but I find it takes some careful growing to persuade it to grow to full size and form that elegantly waisted, vase-like shape: you’ve got a better chance if you grow it in the cool of autumn, but in summer it tends to bolt. So I cheat! If you grow pak choi as baby leaves instead, sowing direct into the ground and snipping the seedlings at 10cm tall, you get all the flavour with none of the hassle.
Night-scented stock
I love to take a cuppa out into the garden in the evenings as the sun goes down: and even more so when I catch the heady, sweet perfume of night-scented stock on the air. You’ll almost always find it aflutter with moths of all kinds, as they adore its nectar-rich, soft, lavender-blue flowers. It’s so easy to grow – just sow direct into any patch of ground and poke a few peasticks among seedlings for them to lean on as they grow.
Poached egg plant
The poached egg plant is my go-to flower for cheering up a dull corner of the garden: you can’t help but smile when you see its cheery little cupped flowers with their egg-yolk yellow centres popping from the dense, ground-covering foliage. They’re full of nectar and absolute magnets for pollinating insects – I often sow them in the veg garden in the hope the bees they attract will boost my beans while they’re there.
