April in the Kitchen Garden

After what feels like months of thumb twiddling and sitting on hands there suddenly don’t seem to be enough hours in the day – it’s all systems go in the kitchen garden.

April is one of my busiest months: the indoor sown seeds will need to be pricked out (tomatoes, celery, sweet peppers etc), more indoor sowings need to be done (the squash and cucumbers), out on the soil the beds are now ready for some direct sowings. The beds have been tickled over and given some compost and chicken manure then raked over to give as fine a medium as possible for tiny seeds to sit in. I will start to successionally sow the legume bed with various climbing beans and peas starting about mid-April as the soil warms up then every two weeks or so until mid-June.

One of the biggest differences in the garden now will be the temporary structures that need to go up to support the climbing veggies…….the garden will become a forest of bean poles, looking a little forlorn until the plants get going. I love it when the structures go up……they tantalise me with the promise of things to come.

The shed is gradually emptying of all the pots, trays and assorted bits and bobs stored over winter…….so it’s a great time to have a bit of a tidy and clean up……and maybe even get a couple of top coats of paint on.

And, of course, we’re into grass cutting season and weeding time – the speed with which the grass and weeds grow never fails to amaze me. There really aren’t enough hours in the day!

Happy April gardening everyone.