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Gardening in a Gale
Croft Garden Diary
April 2012
This is always a busy month in the garden with seeds to sow, seedlings to pot on and young plants to harden-off before planting. Although we had plenty of sunshine, the cold northerly winds slowed the growth rate of everything except the weeds.
There is always the temptation to put plants out too early even with protective covers. However, the soil was warm enough to plant potatoes, onions and shallots, and to sow carrots and parsnips.
Time spent keeping the weeds down in the vegetable beds is always well spent as it cuts down the amount of weeding required later. Well that is the theory, but I always seem to have plenty of weeds throughout the year! It is also the time to begin feeding the fruit bushes, not too much nitrogen as you want to encourage flower production, so a good balanced fertiliser is required.
The vegetable beds may have remained empty but in the polytunnel the effect of the increased daylight and
warmth of the sun was having a marked effect. The productivity of the spinach, lettuce, mizuna and rocket was quite phenomenal. Two rows of spinach produced enough for several generous cuttings each week with enough for the freezer. We continued to harvest carrots and towards the end of the month the cauliflowers were ready. So far the polytunnel has produced enough to get us through the "hungry gap" and there is still plenty to come for next month.
There were also plenty of herbs this month with chives, mint, parsley, buckler leaf sorrel, fennel and loveage producing the first flush of fresh leaves. I am still reliant on over-wintered pots of rosemary, thyme and sage as they do not seem able to survive outdoors in my garden.
In the ornamental garden the daffodils continued to flower, ending with the beautifully scented Pheasants Eye at the end of the month. Next will come the alliums, but until then there is were the delicate flowers of London Pride to enjoy. Last year I grew several Scottish native wildflowers from seed and the Sea Pinks or Thrift have been an outstanding success. They began flowering early in April and produced masses of flowers for the bees all month. A very welcome addition to the garden.