The merry month of May makes allotment and balcony gardeners sweat. In the vegetable garden, the beds and young plants must now be nurtured and cared for. Read here what needs to be done and which tools you need for this.

Small gardeners and allotment gardeners can get confused in May. Because with the rising and constant early summer temperatures, you have your hands full in the ornamental and vegetable garden. The blades of grass can hardly be stopped when they grow and must be tamed and watered regularly. The young vegetables also need to be cared for. So that tomato, cucumber

Use these tools to get your garden moving in May:

1. (small)-hoe

Anyone who has not yet prepared the beds for their young plants should do so slowly. The seedlings should be fit for freedom by now. Don’t forget to put the tender little plants in the fresh air during the day in the days before moving from the window sill to the outside. This hardens and makes cucumbers and sensitive tomatoes in particular more resistant to wind and slightly lower night temperatures. But back to the beds: They should first be roughly freed from all the green that has spread there in spring. A small combination hoe or a small cultivator (e.g. from Gardena) is sufficient for this. The hoes with a long handle, such as the Solid hoe from Fiskars, are a little more gentle on the back and just as suitable.

Depending on which vegetables you want to put in the bed, it can also make sense to give the soil a little fresh cell treatment. The best way to do this is to work in some fresh compost from your own garden. Alternatively, the young plants are of course also happy about a liter or two of packed soil. For classics such as cucumbers, courgettes, tomatoes or kohlrabi, planting soil enriched with guano such as Plantaflor’s tomato and vegetable soil is ideal. Important: Do not just scratch the surface of the bed with the hoe. The deeper and more intensively the soil is loosened and aerated, the better rain and irrigation water can be absorbed. At the latest after the Ice Saints (2022 between May 11th and 15th) the young plants are allowed to go outside. The most important helpers when moving: a pair of planting and soil gloves and a small trowel for the planting hole.

2. Watering can/garden sprayer

Nothing works without water in the garden month of May. The plants that have been moved outdoors must be watered well so that they survive the move unscathed. The lawn also needs to be watered, especially if it has been touched up in some places. If there is no rain, the supplies collected from the rain barrel should be used to help out. And for this the good old watering can has to be used. For practical reasons, however, it is better to use a garden hose for the lawn, which can be equipped with a garden sprayer (e.g. from Gardena). Tip: If possible, water the lawn in the evening hours. In the morning the green still feeds on the dampness of the night. In the midday hours, the water evaporates very quickly, especially when there is strong sunlight. There is also a risk that the stalks will “burn”.

3. Spreader

The spreader is not used very often in the garden. But once you learn to love the little helper on two wheels, you will grow lawn fertiliser, seeds and sand

Particularly practical: some spreaders have an integrated spreader stop, which can be used to briefly interrupt spreading by hand, for example when turning the cart. If the shed is already bursting at the seams, a practical hand spreader performs this task just as reliably. Here, however, you should make sure that there is as little wind as possible when spreading. Otherwise, evenly distributing the spreading material from this height is almost impossible.

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