AprilThe great month of sowing
April holds the bulk of the year’s sowing. The soil has passed 10 °C, the days are lengthening in earnest, and yet the nights stay cool, sometimes frosty. Outdoors, sow carrots, beetroot, turnips, parsnips, lettuces, peas, spinach and radishes; plant potatoes, onions and spring cabbages. Under cover, courgettes, cucumbers and beans wait their turn. Tomatoes are pricked out into individual pots.
Tips of the month
- Sow carrots, beetroot, turnips, parsnips, lettuces, spinach and radishes outdoors.
- Plant maincrop potatoes and spring cabbages.
- Prick out tomatoes into individual pots and harden them off outside in fine weather.
- Sow courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins, basil and, at the end of the month, beans under cover.
- Sow leeks, autumn cabbages and Brussels sprouts in a seedbed.
- Mulch the strawberries and stretch netting against the birds.
- Put in the stakes and poles for peas and beans.
In the vegetable garden and orchard
What to do in april
Sow under cover
Sowing in the ground
Plant
On the plate
Eating in april
April brings rhubarb, young spinach, crunchy radishes, the first lettuces and the tops of everything that is coming up. Cook simply: rhubarb tart, warm spinach salad, radishes with butter, an omelette with herbs from the garden.
Living well
April is the month when you sow more than you could ever plant out, and accept giving seedlings to the neighbours. The vegetable garden becomes a conversation, and that is often where the best ideas come from.