Vegetables

Plant second early potatoes in the first half of April, with main crop in the second half of the month.  Example varieties of second earlies are Anya, Catriona and Charlotte.  Main crop varieties include Cara, Desiree, King Edward and Majestic.  There are loads of others.

Pot on tomato seedlings into individual pots when they have their first set of true leaves.

Protect pests of brassicas and carrots by covering the crop with horticultural fleece.  Make sure to secure all the edges.  Stronger protection is needed if wild birds are a problem.

Now is the time to sow beetroot, carrots, Swiss chard, summer cauliflower, kohl rabi, lettuce, leeks, radish, turnip spring onions, peas and perpetual spinach.

Sow late maturing brassicas such as Brussels sprouts for transplanting in June or July.

Complete planting of shallot, onion sets and seed-grown onions.

Other jobs

For garden wildlife now is the time to sow direct annual flowering plants like marigolds, nigella and cornflower for insects and seed heads later.  Oregano and thyme are loved by bees too.

Your lawn would benefit from a spring lawn feed.  Products that include moss killer as well as fertiliser are useful.  Once the moss killer has worked it will need raking out and removed.  I have found that it takes ages to breakdown in a compost heap and is almost impossible to burn,, so the only way to get rid of it is to bag it and take it to the recycling centre (always assuming the MVDC allows us to do this in view of their policy to close these centres for one or two days a week).

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