May good for beans

As May continues and the weather begins to warm up, it is the perfect time to plant runner and French beans, a report in the Guardians online blog asserts.

Gardening expert Caroline Foley notes that even through there can be frost during the month, any danger of a cold snap should have passed by the time the seedlings emerge from the earth.

Ms Foley suggests that if such beans are sown both outdoors and indoors – such as in a glasshouse – then horticultural enthusiasts will benefit from both earlier and later crops.

Elsewhere in the garden, she notes that gardening vigilance pays off at this period of the year, noting that many things, both good and bad, will be growing rapidly and as such people should keep a hoe handy to "chase after" the weeds.

Meanwhile, online resource GardenAction suggests that horticulturalists can plant French beans four weeks before the last frost of spring occurs if a cloche or polytunnel can be provided as protection.