May Day blessings to you all and I hope this month finds you happy and healthy and ready to embrace the pure joy that is the British summer time.

After the fabulous festivities of the May bank holiday, featuring the first barbecues of the season, village fetes, maypole dancing and rather too much imbibing of local ales, it is the perfect time to get cracking in your own back yard and launch your own ‘Going Green Campaign’. This month I want to urge families to get outside and get gardening, as it is World Plant a Vegetable Garden Day on Sunday 19th May.

If you don’t have the space – or the will – to create your own garden, why not consider joining forces with neighbours and creating a community garden? Members of the Green Party and their neighbours in Charlton Kings, Cheltenham have recently created an orchard on public land and are committed to growing fruit trees to benefit pollinators, the environment and future generations.

Start with vegetable seeds in pots on a windowsill

But what should you grow? The simplest thing is to start with vegetable seeds in pots on a windowsill, or put seedlings into trays. Then if you have a greenhouse you can transfer them into larger pots to come on. Tomatoes, onions, leeks, cabbages and seed potatoes are great for beginners, but personally I love nothing more than a freshly pulled knobbly carrot. Yummy!

Starting small with a simple herb garden or salad patch and enjoying getting your hands dirty – whilst offering the kids a chance to understand what real food is, why it is healthy and how delicious home grown produce truly is – will be so rewarding, and just imagine what could happen. Before you know it you could be entering the ‘Biggest Marrow’ competition at the school fete or crafting artisan soup recipes to rival Mary Berry!

Then, of course, we have the added joy of the compost heap, as using fresh produce inevitably creates green waste and can offer the chance to create a wonderful mulch with which to use on future plants. Kids will love seeing the worms create their home and magically turn their old vegetable cuttings into soft fragrant soil.

Whilst gardening may look like work to grown-ups, it is the best kind of play for children who can feel useful and accomplished when they see what they have created. It is prime quality time too for parents and kids to get together without pressure or hurry, to simply enjoy physical activity.

The benefits to mental and physical health cannot be understated, as well as all those incredible microbes in the soil adding to our immune system, creating healthy bodies and minds. What’s not to love? This May, get outside and get gardening!