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May: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
The Food Forest, The Raised Bed Garden & The Kitchen Courtyard
Our Scottish Garden in May
May is the month where our Scottish garden truly comes alive. After the tentative beginnings of Spring, growth now feels confident and unstoppable. The days stretch longer, warmth lingers a little more often and suddenly everything seems greener, fuller, and moving at pace. It’s a month of excitement, of sowing and planting, but also of keeping up because once May begins, the garden rarely stands still, even if we still do have overnight frosts till mid May!!
Fruit Trees Starting to Bloom
The Food Forest
In the food forest, May feels filled with promise. Apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees are now dressed in blossom or beginning to set tiny fruits, each one carrying the hope of future harvests. Pollinators are everywhere on warm days, moving between flowers in a steady hum of activity that makes the whole space feel alive.
The newer additions around the fence line are beginning to settle into their positions. Hollyhocks stretch upward, while flowering currant and witch hazel continue to shape the space with structure. The forsythia, planted with edible intentions in mind, has finished flowering now, but still holds its place in the design part ornamental, part useful.
At ground level, the food forest is filling out quickly. Strawberries spread across the floor as living ground cover, helping suppress weeds while promising fruit later in the season. Yarrow continues to establish itself around the fruit trees, supporting biodiversity and building healthier soil systems. Chinese Artichokes starting to spread and fill out unused spaces.
This month, we’ve continued adding in more herbs and fruit bushes as there is still so much space to fill. Every small addition feels like another layer in the system, gradually building toward a more resilient and productive food forest.
The paths once covered in a coir roll out mulch as been removed as it had broken down so much weeds were coming through. We plan on adding micro clover and creeping thyme onto the paths for sustainability and biodiversity.
The Raised Bed Garden
In late May we start to plant in the raised beds, tender crops can finally begin moving outdoors, though always with one eye on the forecast, Scottish weather still likes to keep us humble, in the next few weeks of June they’ll be filled up.
Potatoes are growing strongly now, peas are climbing steadily, and rows of greens are filling spaces quickly. Salad crops are becoming regular harvests, while root vegetables and herbs continue to establish. Seedlings started indoors finally make their journey outside, finding their place in the beds after weeks of careful tending.
We’ve also continued adding edging to the front of the raised bed paths using reclaimed bricks we picked up for free on Facebook Marketplace. These are already proving worthwhile, creating clearer pathways, reducing grass creeping into the growing space, and making mowing and maintenance far easier.
Alongside the edging, we’ve planted chives for multiple functions: bringing colour and texture to the beds, helping deter pests naturally, and increasing productivity from every available edge. It’s a small design choice, but one that stacks functions beautifully.
There’s a rhythm to May gardening: sow, plant, water, mulch, repeat. It’s rewarding, but busy and suddenly every spare hour seems to find its way back to the garden.
Jerusalem Artichokes in this front bed, middle bed ready for pepper & tomatoes and back bed with mesh cover has purple sprouting broccoli, Brussel sprouts and chard.
The Kitchen Courtyard & Indoors
The kitchen courtyard becomes a productive little world of its own in May. Herbs are growing quickly now, chives, thyme, rosemary, mint, parsley, and coriander all finding their stride. Pots spill over with greenery, and fresh cuttings become part of everyday meals again.
Seedlings still pass through here as they harden off, adjusting to wind, temperature, and changing conditions before heading into their final growing spaces. It’s a transition month, where indoors and outdoors overlap constantly.
Inside, the need for grow lights and windowsill space slowly begins to ease as more plants graduate outdoors. Microgreens still have their place, but attention turns increasingly to what’s growing outside, where the real momentum of the season is gathering.
We have even bigger plans for this space moving forward. As part of our wider permaculture design, we’re hoping to enclose sections of the courtyard with a roof and additional sides to create a more sheltered growing environment. Strong winds funnel in from the surrounding field and create a difficult microclimate here, limiting what can thrive. Through my Permaculture PDC Pro, I identified this as a key challenge and designed a solution to create a more stable, productive, and resilient growing area—so watch this space.
Indoors, the growing space is packed as seedlings are potted up again before beginning the transition outside more details on this blog here: Why It’s Essential to Harden Off Your Plants Before Planting Out
Check what we are sowing each month and take a detailed tour in our new monthly series: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
The Season’s Mood
The Season’s Mood
May feels joyful, especially after such a wonder May with temperatures hitting over 25º. The garden no longer whispers, it sings. Growth is everywhere, colours deepen, birds nest nearby and every walk around the garden reveals something new.
But May also asks for trust. Things are growing quickly now, and not everything will go to plan. Frosts may surprise us, pests appear and weather shifts without warning. Gardening in Scotland always involves adaptability.
Still, there is optimism in May. The hard work of Winter and Spring has become visible, and the garden feels full of possibility. This is the month where dreams begin to look real, where the first harvests arrive, the beds fill out, and the promise of summer begins to settle over everything.
2024 MARCH TOUR: Mini Food Forest In A Raised Bed Path You Tube Video
Happy Gardening!
Follow Us Across Our Socials
Katrina & Clayton and family live in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on instagram. They practice permaculture principles in the garden, reducing & repurposing waste whenever they can. Katrina shows how home educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive.
Clayton Completed The 2 Grow and Learn Courses with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. He is Autistic, Non Verbal & has been Home Educated since 2018. Katrina & Peter hold their PDC & PDC PRO Permaculture Design Course from Oregon State University.
They featured on BBC Beechgrove Gardens Ep23 2022 and returned in 2023 for an update, Katrina & Clayton are also columnists for ScotlandGrows Magazine, Guest Blog for Caledonian Horticulture as well as working with Gardeners’ World Magazine and many other brands.
They are also Author of the new Children’s Book Series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening. Topics on Growing, Harvesting, Sowing & Composting and 108 Page Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle.
Listen in on their Guest Podcasts to learn more about them.
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Author of the new children’s book series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening and Sowing, Growing, Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle. Our latest book in the series OUT NOW Vol 5 : Clayton’s Garden Visitors: A Story of Autism and Feeding The Birds
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