Kitchen Garden Magazine

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Jobs for April

The weather in April can be positively tropical or bitterly cold with frost and snow – and all the variations in between. Don’t get carried away by a spell of good weather and be tempted to sow or plant vulnerable crops too soon. Continue to prepare the soil and protect cold frames full of plants which are hardening off. Sue Hoy, head gardener at Normanby Hall in North Lincolnshire takes you through the essential tasks for April

KG top tips

One of the tricks for a successful vegetable garden is to have a succession of crops as far through the year as possible. Use a pocket diary or small notebook to jot down sowing times of crops like lettuce, radish and turnips, with a reminder to sow again in three weeks’ time.
l Dig a runner bean trench ready for planting out your runner beans in early June. My granddad always dug a trench about 1ft (30cm) deep and filled it with kitchen waste in the weeks until planting. Top it off with well-rotted manure, and the beans will have a deep, moisture-retentive root run and produce great crops.

l Rhubarb should be cropping well now, but don’t be tempted to pull too many stems from one plant. First year plants should be left completely alone to build up vigour. If older plants are overcropped, they are left with too few leaves to survive for further years.

KG QUICKIES

• Peas can be tricky to grow in some gardens. They prefer shelter and warm soils, and can suffer from root rots on wet, heavy soil. I find the mangetout, or ‘eat all’ varieties much easier – and they don’t suffer from the attentions of the pea moth. Grown in the same way as ordinary peas, started off in modules and planted out once soil temperatures have risen, in double rows, they will crop very well. Put the pea sticks in at the same time as you plant, both to avoid damage to roots and attack by birds. ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’ crops heavily, has good flavour and is resistant to mildew; ‘Sugar Snap’ is good too.

• Mint is indispensable in the garden, but is always seen as a bit of a nuisance. It’s generally grown in pots to stop it rampaging through the garden, but it does quickly lose vigour and dwindles away. Knock it out of the pot now, and replant small pieces into fresh compost. Water well, and the pot will soon be full of young shoots with their delectable mint aroma. Try some different, more decorative mints too, like the pretty wrinkled cream and green pineapple mint, or the gold-striped ginger mint – both can be used in cooking.

• If your soil was too wet and cold to plant potatoes last month, get early varieties in as soon as you can. If you’re growing only a small crop, for the first, fantastic new potato taste, try growing them in potato bags or pots. It’s a great way to grow potatoes in a small space, and has the advantage that you can control the type of soil used and the positioning of the bag – for example, it can be given some shelter, resulting in earlier potatoes. The potato bags, which have two handles for ease of carrying, are like a smaller version of a builder’s bag – these would also be ideal for growing potatoes. As a general guide, plant four seed potatoes per bag, or two per 30cm (12in) pot.

• While most crops do reasonably well outdoors in British summers, in poor years they do better with a little help. It’s a fairly simple job to knock together a moveable cold frame from planks of wood, which will provide extra shelter for crops like outdoor cucumbers or celery. In my experience, both do much better grown this way. The frame doesn’t need to have a top, although that might be useful for other crops; the shelter from the sides seems to do the trick. Tender herbs like basil and coriander might also benefit.

FRUIT IN BRIEF

• Protect early fruit blossom from frosts by draping fleece over them when cold weather is forecast.

• Hand pollinate apricot flowers using a soft brush, then mist to ensure good fruit set – pollination is poor in dry conditions.

• Check blackcurrant bushes for big bud mite before the leaves open. Some buds may look swollen and round, and this is a sign that they’re infected by blackcurrant gall mite, which not only destroys the buds but can also cause reversion disease. Reversion disease seriously reduces crops.

Picking off and destroying swollen buds will help in the early stages, but badly infested bushes should be dug up and burned.

For lots more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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