Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
-EP270 What To Sow In The Garden In April & Other Gardening Jobs
What vegetables to sow in April?
The garden explodes into life as April brings the perfect conditions for planting nearly everything on your wish list. After weeks of dry weather in Ireland, temperatures have finally risen to match the sunshine, creating the ideal environment for seeds and seedlings to thrive.
This comprehensive seed sowing guide walks you through exactly what to plant now, with special attention to the unique conditions of this particular spring. Unlike last year's cold, wet April, current conditions allow for direct sowing of many crops that would normally need indoor starting. From successional vegetables like spring onions and spinach to the season's first warm-weather crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and pumpkins, the possibilities are extensive.
Beyond what to plant, you'll discover crucial tips for success that many gardeners overlook. Learn the secret to growing perfect carrots (hint: it's all about consistent moisture in that critical first month), understand why April-sown tomatoes can quickly catch up to those started earlier, and discover clever intercropping strategies to maximize your garden space.
The episode also covers essential April garden tasks beyond sowing - from caring for newly planted bare-root trees and hedging during dry spells to lawn maintenance and protecting young seedlings from unpredictable spring weather. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting your growing journey, this guide provides timely, practical advice tailored to this moment in the gardening calendar.
Grab your seeds and tools - the garden is awake and ready! This perfect spring weather makes gardening a joy rather than a chore, so make the most of it and set yourself up for a bountiful growing season ahead.
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email: info@mastermygarden.com
Master My Garden Courses:
https://mastermygarden.com/courses/
Check out Master My Garden on the following channels
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mastermygarden/
Instagram @Mastermygarden https://www.instagram.com/mastermygarden/
Until next week
Happy gardening
John
how's it going, everybody? And welcome to episode 270 of master, my garden podcast. Now, this week's episode being the first friday of april, it's the monthly seed sowing guide and kind of other jobs that we can be doing. And to put a bit of context on it, for you know, as we all know, here in Ireland we've had a fantastic few weeks weather-wise, so pretty much no rain now for four weeks. A little bit of a little bit of a damp day I think was about a week ago there, it was some rain, but not a lot. Definitely. It has been a lovely, lovely dry time with a little bit of wind, and everywhere's got dried up quite quickly. But what was missing, I suppose, up until this week was a little bit of heat along with that. So we did have the dry weather, but a little bit of heat has come into it now and it definitely feels like spring.
Speaker 1:And you know I've said this before that timings and dates of sowing are very relevant to what's happening outside, because you have to have somewhere for these seedlings to go. And now to me it feels like spring. Everything is waking up, the the birds are singing, the hedges are bursting out, grass has really burst into growth. In fact, in the last week the the growth has been explosive. That's how much the temperatures have come up and there is still a bit of coolness at times in the wind, but we really are now in in a really lovely period of spring weather. And why these are relevant on a, you know year, year to year. You know some. You might think if if we do the seed sowing guide for April this year, then that does for every April. But no, these episodes have proven really popular because we kind of tailor it a little bit. You know, the guide or the list to what you can sow remains kind of the same year to year, but maybe the messaging around it is different year to year. So we get really get sewing when, when the weather is the way it is at the moment, when it feels spring like, when we know that you know it's it's not summer weather but it's starting to feel like that warmth is there, and then we know that the potential to come is there and yeah, that along, given that it's early april, that comes with. You know the, the caution that we just need to have around last frost dates and frost potential, rain over over the coming weeks, cold rain, especially as we start to get young seedlings out into the ground or start to sow seeds into the ground. So that's why it's it's different.
Speaker 1:If you go back to this time last year, we had pretty much the same sowing list, but what we had at that time was cold, wet, no sunlight and certainly nothing to be getting excited about. But for any of you living in Ireland anyway, for sure you're definitely excited. You're definitely up and going now. You're definitely sowing your seeds, you're seeing growth and everything is moving in the direction that we'd like it to at this stage of the year. Wherever you are listening, I hope that you're having you know similar good news stories in relation to your reddit weather and you're getting a good start to spring.
Speaker 1:But the the list of what we can sow, as I say, we're going to go through that now and then we're going to chat about just some of the things that we need to watch out for over the coming weeks a lot of the, a lot of the you know, the seedlings that that that we have now. They're still going to be tender, they're still going to need a little bit minding and they're going to be used to coming from a certain environment. A good example of that was I happened to be in the garden center yesterday and it just got a trolley in of tomato plants. They're in little 10 centimeter pots. They were, you know, maybe 10 centimeters tall, really small plants. They looked like they'd just come out of a lovely warm greenhouse and then they were on a trolley with the lovely warm greenhouse and then they were on a trolley with the cold wind blowing across them and they did not look happy. And I suppose that's the beauty of what we can do. We can mine them, we can look after them and we can put them into the right location when everything feels right.
Speaker 1:The fact that we've had good weather pretty much means that anything that we want to sow now we can go, we can really get going, and certain things that you might feel like you're late on will sow now will really catch up, and I'll chat about those as well. So we're going to talk about the seeds that we can sow, the precautions we can take for young seedlings to mine them, and it's not just about cold or wet, it's, you know, potentially about dry. So the top couple of inches of particularly no dig beds at the moment are quite dry because we've had this wind for a while without much rain, and so the top little bit of the ground can be dry and of course that's where your seeds are going, that's where your young seed, your young plug plants are going. They're going into that top inch or so, so that can be dry. So we going to have need to think of that as well.
Speaker 1:Watering is important at this stage. So loads to get through and but to get into the list, I suppose it's. Yeah, it is the same list that we do pretty much every year, with more or less no exceptions, and it's a comprehensive list for april. It's pretty much, you know, there's everything. Everything is on the table for this month in terms of the edible garden, in terms of flowers we mentioned it a couple of weeks ago there's still brilliant time to be sown all your annuals.
Speaker 1:A lot of the heat now is up, so annuals cosmos, you know any of those? Anyone looking to sow dahlias? Go ahead. Perfect timing with the warm weather, they're just going to fly out of it. Get them potted up in a few weeks and then you'll have plants to go out into borders, sort of mid-may and mid to mid-may to the mid-june. I guess you know that kind of time frame and that's perfect. They'll grow on into strong plants over the over the summer and definitely give you flower this year. So all flowers are on the table daily. Daily tubers still an opportunity to get those in um. So anyone that hasn't done that and keep your eyes open. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, lots of sort of 30 off, 50 off in some, in some cases, and they'll give you a great, a great opportunity to get a lot of plants in and the ground is, temperatures are rising, so they're just going to take off straight away.
Speaker 1:Keep an eye out for slugs. There's going to be less of them at this stage because it has been quite dry. So that's a that's a good thing, but watch out for slugs on particularly things like dahlia tubers or young plants going out again. A lot of the bedding plants are starting to go on sale. Just be careful there. Typically bedding plants if you went back over the years, it was sort of mid-may was when we got going with those. At the moment, as I say, you see them in shops. So just watch out for those. Don't be so quick to put out them. There's lots of good spring options still available that are going to be hardy for any bit of weather. We might get over the coming weeks and then switch to your summer stuff in a couple of weeks time. But, yeah, the the list that we can get sowing on.
Speaker 1:So to talk about the sort of successional stuff, so the stuff that we're going to sow on a regular basis, we're looking at spring onions. They can be sowed now. They can be sowed into module trays still, or even directly into a pony tunnel or, in some cases, outside the ground. Temperatures, as I say, are coming up, so we have the opportunity to sow more stuff this month, more seeds this month, but also the opportunity to sew them in different ways. So previously, almost everything we were sowing, we were putting into module trays, where we had the, you know, the opportunity to give it a little bit of molly, coddling or minding, as they say, um. But now we have the ability to switch and sow directly as well, which is great. So spring onion is the first one on the list. That'll be on the list every month now. So we sow every month. That means you're going to keep, you're going to sow it successively and you're going to keep having new plants, new harvests coming all the time.
Speaker 1:Spinach is another one. Again, same thing run to seed, especially annual. Well, annual spinach is definitely going to run to seed it the the pace at which it runs the seed will speed up as the temperatures rise throughout the year. So in the summer months, when we get really warm temperatures, and that spinach is going to run to see it a lot faster than it will in the springtime or even in the autumn time. So just, you'll have to sort of tweak your, your sowing intervals as that happens. But for now, once a month, do a sowing once a month, and you'll be able to harvest then for a full month and then your next batch will be coming on. So that's, that's another one. Radish is another one that's going to, you know, mature quite quickly at the moment and, yeah, that's going to become sort of a regular one, regular one that we sew on a monthly basis.
Speaker 1:Turnips, as in the white turnips, there again, milan, purple tops and so on, they can be sewed. Now again, they kind of come into your successional sewing because there's a certain size that they're really tasty. If they start to go above that size they get a bit woody and not so nice. So I would sew little enough on that so small amount. Do it woody and not so nice. So I would sow little and often on that so small amount, do it every month and then you're going to kind of have that fresh, perfect sized one which you know. It's that the size for those, like the size of, say, a mandarin orange, for example. That's, that's kind of the size you're looking for for for the perfect taste. Above that they can get a little bit strong. They can also get a little bit woody or stringy and they're not so nice.
Speaker 1:Lettuce we're going to sow on a monthly basis. But again, if you're utilizing sort of clever harvesting methods, you may not need to do that every month, but you can sow every month and it's a good idea to do that. Lettuce that you can use. They don't give you over a longer period things like cut and come, where you're not going to harvest the head of lettuce but rather harvest a selection of leaves whenever you want them, and that'll just give you a harvest over a much longer period and it'll mean that you don't have to do as many or as regular sowings. Next one on the list is sort of spring summer salads, and you're talking about a mix of things here. It can be anything from quinoa leaves to rocket, to mustard and a mixture of leaves and they can be all kind of mixed together and then you get kind of a mixed salad. So it's a. It's a really nice mix and again it would act in a kind of a cut and come way. It's not strictly speaking cut and come, but it would act in that way so you're able to do that.
Speaker 1:Onion is another one, a really good one. So kind of the last opportunity to sow onions from seed. I sowed onion from seed there a few weeks ago. So two varieties bought in the same shop on the same day, two separate varieties. They're planted into a big tray. Half of the tray has 100% germination. On the other half of the tray has 100 germination. On the other half of the tray not a single, not a single onion has germinated.
Speaker 1:Problem is I can't remember what shop I bought them in, so I actually can't go back with them, but they, they were non-viable seed, a little bit frustrating. I actually only ended up buying them. You know where I bought them because, um, I was full. Sure, I had a couple of packets left from last year and it turned out? It didn't. But these seeds were off the shelf and again, as I say, I can't remember exactly where I got them, but they are 100. They were not viable. So anybody who's bought them they're going to have any success with them for sure, because the conditions are identical. They're in the same tray, so it's a big tree away tray. Half of them was done with one variety, half with the other, and just no germination on one side. It's kind of frustrating. So you're gonna have to probably lean back on onion sets a little bit there, but anyway, that's that's the way it goes. You can't have things like that.
Speaker 1:Onions can be sown this kind of, as I said, the last chance to do that leeks, the other one. You're looking at early maturing varieties here and we will do another sowing of leeks for later on the time. But now early sowing of earlier varieties and you're going to multi-sow them into a plug tray or a or a, you know, a module tray. Beetroot, again for me I won't do a lot of sewings of that, but you can sew them now. A lot of people will sew beetroot into module trays. I don't, I just direct so when the time is right, and for me the time is right now. So beetroot going in, uh yeah, over the weekend, fingers crossed, and uh, that's kind of the first batch of seeds.
Speaker 1:Then we're looking at some of the brassicas. Again, I sow these intermittently, I don't sow them all the time. But looking at cabbage, calabrese, cauliflower, swedes, pak choy chard, all those chard, all those, I know they're not all the brassica family, but that's the sewings that I do of those I kind of do only a few times, not every month, but there you can sew all of those this month, perfectly fine, I'll do some of the peas and beans. So broad beans I sewed last month but again you can sew them this month and that's kind of you know, this month and early, early into next month is kind of the last shot month and early, early into next month is kind of the last shot. You get, at that, french beans coming onto the list for the first time, a little bit old up until now, but definitely now they can, they can be sowed. I do the dwarf one and I also do a climbing one. It's actually not that terrible much difference in taste. Probably bigger yield off the off the climbers, slightly better taste maybe off the dwarf ones and you get a lot from a really, really compact, small plant. So either are, but I'll probably be sowing both in the coming weeks. Peas I already have some sowed and I'll do more again this month. They're used both ways, so use the leaves off them or the shoots off them and also let some of them mature for peas peas which will be which will come in quite early. I have my implanted into the polytunnel and yeah they're, they're going to go really good now from the.
Speaker 1:From now on, we're into some of the herbs then, and coming onto the herb list this month is basil for the first time. So again, it's a warm, it likes warm weather. So basil is coming onto the list. It really needs heat, needs heat at the start, needs heat after you, after you get it going, needs minding for a while. Just be careful of colder, colder evenings and so on. Uh, coriander, another one that kind of gets sown successionly because it does bolt a lot. Uh, dill, parsley, shervel all of those herbs can be sowed now.
Speaker 1:If you're growing something like rosemary, sage, thyme, you can do all those from seed. I would be inclined, though, because nobody needs a lot of those plants, you know, for most of us in our home gardens. If you have go out and get a couple of plants, as opposed to sowing seed of those, it's probably, you know, an easier way, because you buy a packet of seed with a couple hundred seed in it. You don't need a couple hundred rosemary. Once you have a couple of plants of that, that's going to be there all the time anyway. So unless you're planning to gift them or give them away or grow a rosemary hedge, then I don't really think you need to be sowing a load of those.
Speaker 1:But you can. You can this month. Celery and celeriac again can be. So just remember they need temperature and they also need light, so you don't cover your seed of those. And coming onto the list for the first time this month is some of the warm the, the warm temperature ones, something like pumpkins, I can can be. So this month, more or less for the first time, cucumbers, the same Courgettes, the same Squash, the same Melon, another one, the melons, like a longer period of time. So if you did have a warm tunnel, which I don't, you could have got them going earlier on a heat mat or something like that to try just get as much length in the season as you possibly can. Tomatoes can still be sown.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people will tell you that that's late and you know, looking everywhere, there's people planting them already. But it's amazing how quick they will grow at this stage of the year. Once, once that heat comes, they will just grow. So something that was sowed a month ago won't end up that far ahead of something that's sowed today. But do get going with them now, because they need a long, long enough season as well and you just end up that your harvest is just pushed a little bit further down the line. If you haven't sowed them and you want to get started and you need some plants, you can get a couple of plants to get you going. You know, to get your kind of early harvest and then add in your own sown ones after that. Other warm, warm ones now are ones that need temperature cucumber, sweet corn they can all be sowed now. So you know, as you can see from the list, it's vast at this stage and there's probably others that I've missed, but that's everything becomes an option in april, especially when the weather is good like it is now. We're not looking to necessarily hold off because once we're getting that daylight and sunlight, we are going to be able to sow, we are going to be able to get good germination, get good growth early and then, hopefully, in a couple of weeks time, when all these seedlings and plant young plants are ready, that we still have this type of weather and we'll be very, very happy.
Speaker 1:Other jobs in the edible garden onion sets. You can still plant those. Loads of time for them. Conditions are good, ground conditions are good. So, yeah, get those in potatoes the same. So, whether it's airlies, second airlies, main crops, get them into the ground. Don't worry if you haven't got them in yet. Still loads of time again.
Speaker 1:I would have mentioned before that me, we have this thing here where we want to plant our potatoes on St Patrick's Day. Here in Ireland it's a traditional thing. But again, like the packets of seed, it's not necessarily to do with the date. It's more to do with the temperatures and are the conditions right. So the conditions are right now. It could be St Patrick's Day in other years. It could be St Patrick's Day in other years, it could be the end of April in other years. But whenever it is, get them into the ground when the conditions are right. If you have the soil temperature right. Potatoes just hit the ground and they go. You don't need to worry about chitting or anything like that once the temperatures are high. Once they're high, they just go and grow strong, and something that got planted in a cold march and something that gets planted in a perfect conditions now they will be by the end of april. There'll be no difference between those, none whatsoever so, and you could even have the potential of some of them getting stunted or getting held back because they've gone out in bad conditions. So all of those can be done now. The other thing that can be done this month carrots and parsnips can get some. On parsnips, I only do one sewing of those, but it is a month now where we can get that done, which is great, and temperatures are are such that we we can. We can sew those.
Speaker 1:One thing with carrots and it's very relevant given that we haven't had rain carrots need moisture in that sowing zone. So if you mark out your little trench for sowing them, there's loads of people I see online doing, you know, toilet roll and putting the seeds on it, making the toilet roll damp and then putting that down into the little trench. You can do that simple way of doing it, though, is just mark out your little your, your little drill. Put some water in it with a watering can or whatever. Just water that end zone. Just leave the settle for a minute or two, shake out your seeds not too thickly.
Speaker 1:Shake out your seeds, cover it and and and water it, and then, over the coming weeks especially if it stays dry with that little bit of a wind, though that top inch of the ground is going to be very dry, and what carrot seeds do not like at the start and this is where most people fail with carrots is that top inch drying out every couple of days. Give that a little sprinkle of water. You don't need to drown it, you just need to give it a little sprinkle of water every couple of days. When you see the carrots all peeping through, continue to water for maybe three, four weeks, just every couple of days. Give them a little sprinkling water, and you will get strong, because they're going to start sending down good roots, and once those roots get established, obviously they're going to draw moisture from deeper down in the ground. But in that first kind of three to four weeks critical stage, if you let them dry out at that stage, then you're not going to see carrots and you're going to wonder what happened. And that is nine times out ten the you know the challenge that people have. So get after that, get watering those kind of along the same lines, but going away from from seed sowing and planting.
Speaker 1:Now a lot of bare root planting gone in over the last few weeks once that weather dried up, once the ground conditions got dry, then a lot of bare root planting got done towards the end of the season and the season has kind of come to a relatively relatively fast end here. But there's definitely, you know, you need to be watering anything that went in bare root over this season because they have very little roots. That top of the ground, as I've said already, is going to be dry and there isn't roots there to sustain trees, particularly hedging, anything like that. So you have all this potential growth up on top and then really small root zones. So just make sure that over the next few weeks that you're keeping those watered right through. If we, you know, you'll know yourself, but things are very dry at the moment. So they need water and they need water on a weekly basis to ensure that you get survival, because the first year of bare root is absolutely critical.
Speaker 1:If you can get them over that stage, then bare root plants will grow as good, if not better, than you know potted plants. So look after them now, but it does take a little bit of nurturing at the start. Other jobs that we can be at obviously, lawns are grown really fast. So you can, you know, get scarifying and things like that. Get them thickened up, give them regular, regular mowing. Don't go too low at this stage. Go mid, mid height. Let them thicken up and so on. Get as much moss as you can. If you don't like moss, some people love it, some people are happy to leave it there. If you don't like it, now's the time. Scarify it, get it out of there. And what other jobs can we be at this? The list is endless at this stage. So it's planting.
Speaker 1:You're probably done with your mulching and all that sort of stuff. Well, I'm not, but. But most people are probably done with their mulching, have a bit more to do and, yeah, creation of a few beds, small bit of splitting still to do of perennials and things like that. But there's so much. Everything is, everything is go, go, go now. And, yeah, it's, it's lovely to have this weather, it's lovely to have this sunshine, and when you have this sunshine it kind of nobody minds, you know, working, working a lot or doing a lot in the garden at this stage, because it's all enjoyable and and the weather conditions are suitable. So, yeah, it's a long list. There's lots to do.
Speaker 1:Watch out for those key points of keeping a bit of moisture in your sewing zone and, over the coming weeks, young seedlings coming out of warm greenhouses or warm conservatories or windowsills or wherever they are, just put yourself into their shoes a little bit. If it's a really cold, breezy day, just watch that, just give them a little bit of protection. That could be a frost fleece, that could be enviro mesh, you know, or bio netting, whatever, whatever the case may be, just something to give them a small bit of protection. The one thing that they don't like and you can get, you know, april showers. You can get kind of a not necessarily a day of rain, but you can get these really heavy downpours, kind of driving rain. Just watch for that. That. They really, you know, young seedlings, young plants, don't like that at all. So just, uh, yeah, watch that and protect them from that and other than that. It's uh, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a great month, great month to be in the garden. Loads to be doing, loads to be sowing. The list is extensive. Continue to sow, you know, even if you have your vegetable beds kind of filled up with plants or seeds at this stage, continue to sow a little bit, because the will gaps come later on and then you'll have plants to go into it or you'll have, you know, new crops on the way. Don't forget to take advantage of intercropping where you you know, if you put in, for example, your brassicas, a cauliflower, for example, will need a big spacing of plants, but in between, while those plants are getting ready to mature, you have a lot of space that you can utilize. So small, little catch crops, like, you know, radish or spinach or something, can go in there while the cauliflower is just starting to grow, and then you can have your harvest taken out there before the cauliflower takes over and needs that space to mature. So they're, they're just some, some other useful tips for this time of year. But other than that, hope you have a great month in the garden. It's uh, yeah, it's. It's perfect conditions at the moment. Fingers crossed that continues and next month again, we'll have our seed sowing guide for may coming up over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Loads of episodes, loads of good episodes. Open Gardens are coming back over the next couple of weeks, so a few of those lined up and, yeah, there's lots happening and lots of good episodes to come up from. Great response to last week's episode with Susan on pruning of fruit trees. Actually, people seemed to really enjoy that and get great benefit from it. So, yeah, hopefully that helped you in your garden. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.