This archive brings together practical, experience-led articles from The Backyard Farmer, covering gardening, DIY, indoor growing, foraging, reviews, and sustainable living. Each post is written with real-world use in mind — focusing on working with nature, building practical skills, and making sustainable choices more accessible.
Introduction – What to Harvest in May (UK) If you’re wondering what to harvest in May, this guide covers the vegetables, fruit, and herbs that may be ready to pick in late spring. May is a turning point in the UK growing season. The garden
Winter is quieter in the vegetable garden, but there is still plenty to sow, harvest and prepare. December is mainly about harvesting and protecting crops, January brings a few early sowings, and February is when the new growing season starts to gather pace. This guide
Autumn is still a productive planting season in the UK. From September to November, you can sow fast-growing salad crops, plant hardy vegetables such as garlic and onion sets, and establish crops that will overwinter for an earlier harvest next year. What you can plant
Companion planting can help you use space efficiently, support biodiversity and reduce some pest pressure, but it works best as part of good garden management rather than as a cure-all. The UK companion planting chart below shows which common vegetables grow well together, which combinations
Planning a vegetable garden is about more than deciding what to plant in spring. A useful plan shows what each bed will grow through the year, when crops will need the space, what can follow them and how those crop groups can move between seasons.
If you’ve ever stood in your garden and thought, “What if I had a little more land?” you’re not alone. Most smallholders begin with raised beds, compost and perhaps a few hens. Over time, the ambition shifts from growing food to managing land. Starting a
Summer planting on these grand isles is special, and even beginners will notice the shift straight away. By June, most beds are producing an abundance of courgettes, peas, beans and tomatoes. Then, by July or August, it almost feels like its time to pause and
Introduction April marks the real start of spring harvest momentum in many UK gardens. The days are noticeably longer, the soil begins to warm, and growth speeds up across the plot. As a result, there’s a clear jump in both variety and quantity compared to
Introduction March sits right in the middle of the UK’s “hungry gap” — that stretch where winter crops are winding down but true spring abundance hasn’t quite arrived. However, that doesn’t mean your beds are empty. In fact, there are still plenty of vegetables ready
Use this UK harvest calendar to see which fruit, vegetables and herbs are typically ready each month, whether you grow on an allotment, in a back garden or under cover. It will help you pick crops at their best, avoid leaving them too long and
This article is to help you when you wake up a bit fuzzy on a Sunday, get to the Allotment, and realise you have no idea what to do! (We’ve all been there) Most gardeners on these little islands don’t need more theory or long
When I started looking at allotment planning software, I kept finding the same problem: many tools were useful, but they also came with more setup, tracking and administration than I actually wanted. Sometimes you simply want to work out what will fit, where it should