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| Germinated Seeds |
Preparation
April is the banker month ‐ if poor weather in March has hampered your outdoor work, then April is the month to
catch‐up. Fork over and rake the soil in preparation for the crops.
To do List
Two words: Weeds. Slugs. You need to stay on top of them both. Check your early spuds regularly and ‘earth‐up’ as
required – this mean’s drawing up soil around the stems to prevent the tubers from going green from sunlight. Water
your tunnel/greenhouse – things can get pretty warm on a nice sunny April day and seedlings will dry out quickly. As
the weather improves, ventilate during the day. Cabbage root fly attack brassicas by laying eggs at the base of plants.
Cut discs of soft material, like carpet underlay and lay flat around the base of the plant. Depending on the weather,
cabbage butterflies will also soon be laying eggs. Check the undersides of leaves and scrape off eggs before they
hatch. You will need to keep this vigilance up in the coming months ‐ collect the caterpillars and feed to hens.
Sowing Seeds
Indoors on a sunny windowsill: lettuce, tomato, pepper, chilli‐pepper, cucumber, celery, celeriac, fennel, basil, leeks,
cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, parsley, courgette, marrow, globe artichoke. Indoors in small pots for planting
outdoors later: beans (dwarf French and climbing French), runner Bean, sweet corn and pumpkin. Outdoors: broad
bean, pea, beetroot, cabbage, spinach, Brussels sprouts, parsnip, spring onion, leek, carrot, radish, broccoli, turnip.
Planting Out
Hardening off – seeds raised indoors/under cover, need to be acclimatised outdoors before planting out. Begin by
giving the plants less heat and water and more light and air. Bring them outside during daylight hours on goods days
for at least a week. You can now get your second earlies and maincrop spuds in to the ground. Last chance to plant
onion sets until late autumn (when you can sow over‐wintering varieties). Plant out cabbage plants when they are
15/20 cm tall into well prepared soil that has been manured. Water the plants well the day before and lift each plant
with as big a root ball as possible. Firm the plants in well and water. Plant out tomatoes in to the greenhouse/tunnel
soil before the middle of the month. If space is at a premium, use plant pots to grow herbs and strawberries.
Harvesting – what’s in season?
Stored fruit and vegetables are likely to be a distant memory at this stage and new crops are only starting to trickle in
which makes April a tricky proposition. The middle of this month might see the first asparagus and the first early
spring cabbage. The other two star performers this month are sprouting broccoli and rhubarb. You could also be
harvesting leeks, spring cauliflowers, kale, spinach and chard, lettuce, carrots (in polytunnel), radish, spring onions
and wild garlic. Pick huge bundles of tender young nettles ‐ divert around 5oz to the kitchen for a delicious nettle
soup and use the rest for an organic fertilizer. Nettles are extremely high in nitrogen so if you soak a large bucketful
in water for a week, you produce a brilliant nitrogen‐rich fertilizer which will be hugely beneficial for any plants which
need leafy growth, for example lettuces, cabbage, kale etc. Put a kilo of nettles in a Hessian bag and soak in 20 litres
of water and leave it to stew for a month or so. It gets pretty stink so put a lid on top. Mix one part nettle liquid with
ten parts water when applying to plants.
MG List:
Sweetcorn - Sow under glass
Spring Onion seeds - Sow
Spring Onion seedlings - Plant out
Cabbage - Sow
Leek Seedlings - Plant out
Leek seeds - Sow
Lettuce & Spinach - Sow
Radish - Sow
Garlic- Fertilise with high nitrogen based fertiliser
Onions- Fertilise with high nitrogen based fertiliser
Peas - Sow
Turnip & Kohl Rabbi - Sow
Coriander - Sow
