UK Planting Schedule: When to Plant What in Your Garden

When it comes to growing things in the UK, timing isn’t just helpful—it’s everything. A UK planting schedule, a seasonal guide that tells you exactly when to sow, transplant, and harvest based on British weather patterns. Also known as a gardening calendar, it’s the difference between a lush garden and a patch of disappointment. You can’t just throw seeds in the ground and hope for the best. The UK’s damp springs, unpredictable summers, and early frosts mean you need to work with the seasons, not against them.

That’s why knowing your soil preparation, the process of getting your ground ready for planting by improving structure, drainage, and nutrients matters just as much as knowing when to plant. Hard soil? You’ll need compost or gypsum before anything takes root. Poor drainage? Raised beds or sand might save your crop. And if you’re into organic gardening, growing food without synthetic chemicals, using compost, natural pest control, and soil health as your foundation, your planting schedule needs to align with natural cycles—not chemical timers.

Some plants need cool weather to thrive—like kale, peas, and broad beans—so they go in as early as February. Others, like tomatoes and cucumbers, wait until late May or even June, when the risk of frost is gone and the soil’s warmed up. Even within that, there’s nuance: planting strawberries in autumn gives them a stronger start than spring, while onions do best when sown in March. The right timing means better yields, fewer pests, and less work later.

You’ll find posts here that cover exactly this: how to grow the UK’s most eaten fruit with a planting calendar, which flowers survive unheated greenhouses in winter, and why tossing grass seed on dirt won’t cut it. You’ll see how vinegar sprays, coffee grounds, and Epsom salt fit into seasonal care routines. You’ll learn what soil works best for organic gardens and how to fix hard ground fast. These aren’t random tips—they’re all pieces of the same puzzle: how to grow smart, grow right, and grow on time in the UK.

Whether you’re planting strawberries in June, prepping flower beds for spring, or wondering if Aldi compost is worth it, the answers are all tied to one thing: timing. This collection gives you the real-world, no-fluff guidance you need to make your garden thrive—season after season.