Afternoon all,

This week we’re launching our first of six weekly Big Lunch gardening tips. Too early? Oh no; if you want to grow your own food for this year’s Big Lunch, you need to get planting tout de suite.

We’ll be bringing you everything from tips for getting your seedlings growing beautifully right the way through to gardening based ice-breaking ideas for the table as you dish up your home grown fodder.

So here is the first in our series. Below is a timetable of what you need to do and by when; a veggie-table if you will.

This is your rough guide of when to sow, plant and harvest. It’s rough because times depend on where you live and it takes longer when it’s colder. We’ve highlighted what to grow between now and 18th July for The Big Lunch with a dotted green line. If some of the plants aren’t ready in time, somebody else’s just might be – that’s the point of sharing and it’s a great excuse to have lots of little lunches later on. Because this plan aims to spawn ardent gardeners the planner includes life beyond The Big Lunch too.

Some of our suggested crowd pleasers for your Big Lunch; leafy salads, early potatoes, tomatoes, spring onions, chives, baby carrots, beetroot and turnips, peas, beans, (broad and french), cress, radishes, mini cauliflowers, courgettes, strawberries, flowers and herbs.

You can also download this plan here. So get it saved on your desktop or this page saved in your faves and get planting.

Happy Growing!