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April In The Garden
April 02 2008
APRIL
April must be the busiest month for the gardener – all those crops we want to grow though the summer need sowing now, and now is when we start wishing we’d chosen crops that could be sown earlier or later, just to spread the load over a little more time. Still we are helped by the lighter evenings, giving us the extra hour of daylight.
The Greenhouse
And the light is getting brighter and the sunshine warmer, so now is the time that the greenhouse can experience wide extremes of temperature. In the bright sun the temperature inside can easily go up to the 100F/38C mark even if the air outside is chilly. While at night the chill air and clear skies can get cold enough to make a frost inside an unheated glasshouse. So tender crops sown early in the month are a gamble - keep some seed back for a second sowing, if necessary.
After mid April its usually safe to sow tender subjects in the greenhouse, and have them a decent size for planting out at the beginning of June. Now is the time to check your ventilation and think about the shading that you will need soon – even if it feels chilly outside. When the temperature goes above 80F/27C most plants stop growing and use up their resources in respiring faster – so there is no gain in production above this temperature.
Plant Evergreens
April is an excellent time for moving and planting evergreens – conifers and broad-leaved types. Though as with any planting at this time of year watch the water situation for new plantings – if it doesn’t rain be ready to water. Hot dry Aprils do happen – last year is a good example.
Refresh Containers
Re-pot container plants replacing some of the compost with a fresh mix. With acid-loving plants use an ericaceous compost. This includes all the ‘Heathland Fruits’ like Blueberries, Cranberries, Bilberry and Lingonberry. Give acid-loving ornamentals like Camellias and Azaleas the same treatment if grown in containers.
The Vine Weevil Plague
While you’re re-potting watch out for small slow-moving white grubs with a slightly curved, tapering body. These are most likely the larvae of Vine Weevil and they eat roots. They are common in peat based composts because its attractive to the egg-laying adult weevils. Pick them out and throw to your hens – or kill them some other way but don’t let them mature into more vine weevils or you’ll have no roots left. There are various products for adding to composts to deter or destroy the grubs, including some biological controls. As the adults are attracted to moist, peaty compost its worth covering the top of your pots with gravel or sand to put them off. And regular re-potting gives you the chance to pick them out.
Vegetables
This month you could be harvesting: Asparagus, leaf beet and chard, sprouting broccoli, spring cabbage and greens, kale, turnips, winter cauliflower, and from cold frames radishes and lettuce.
Self-sown and wild foods ready now: Landcress, Lambs lettuce, Miners Lettuce, Chickweed, Hedge Garlic [young leaves], wild garlic, nettle tops, dandelion, watercress and wild sorrel. French Sorrel is a cultivated perennial with larger and thinner leaves than the wild type. It comes into its own in spring, making masses of delicious, tender new leaves. It has a lemony acidity that you can feel doing you good after a heavy winter diet. Eat lightly cooked on its own or mixed in with other green veg.
Plant out:
Asparagus crowns, chitted potatoes, onion sets, brassicas raised under cover earlier, globe artichokes.
Sow outside: everything that’s hardy
Fruit
Harvest rhubarb from established plants. Keep protecting the blossom of early flowering fruit trees. Traditionally old hessian sacks were thrown over smaller trees before a frost, and removed early in the day to let the pollinating insects in. Wall trees can be easily protected with a hanging curtain of plastic etc. fixed to a wooden baton along the wall.
Cloche over strawberries for an earlier crop. Remember to ventilate in warm weather, which will also let the bees in.
Finish pruning gooseberries and currants.
Finish planting raspberries as soon as possible.
Perennials
Divide perennial plants to increase stocks – chives, garlic chives, welsh and everlasting onions, mints, tsi[chinese sorrel] and day-lily. Day-lilies [Hemerocallis species] are fine ornamentals and also grown for their edible buds. The variety ‘Kwanso’ has double petals, so its buds are extra–packed and this is the main commercial variety grown in China for food. The buds are stir-fried or steamed as a vegetable. Open flowers are used as a food colouring and flavouring, and the young leaf shoots can be eaten before they get tough. This perennial has the agreeable habit of spreading a few inches by rhizomes, hence the need for division now and again. Individual flowers last a day, but occur over a long period.
If you don’t eat them you can feast on their beauty.
Phil Corbett, Cool Temperate
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