What's Happening in the Veg Garden in April?

Well I'm very pleased to report that there is plenty going on in the fruit and vegetable garden this month!

The fruit trees produced a spectacular display of blossom this year so hopefully there will be lots of plums, pears and apples to eat and cook with later in the summer.

Planting asparagus crowns was one of the very first things that I did when I started the vegetable garden.  Watching those first spears grow yet not being able to harvest them for the first few years was certainly a test of  restraint!  Now in the second year of proper harvesting it's a different story.  This year the crop is fantastic and thanks to the warm weather, a whole two weeks earlier than normal too.

The seeds sown last month are now healthy young plants and being hardened off outside during the day, balanced on the top of various different pots and planters.  Depending on the weather, I'll probably give them another week or so before planting them out into the garden.

I'm still starting off seeds in the greenhouse, although I'll start direct sowing next month and the seeds I've sown this month are:

French Beans ~ Slenderette

Sweet Corn ~ Sweet Nugget & Lark

Pumpkins & Squash ~ Crown Prince, Red Kuri & Zucca Marina di Chioggia

Courgettes ~ Soleil, Green Bush, Primula & One Ball

Beetroot ~ Boltardy, Chioggia & Burpees Golden

Tomatoes ~ Marglobe, Rio Grande & Costuluto Fiorentino

Cherry Tomatoes ~ Red Alert & Little Sun

Lettuce ~ Spicy Baby Leaves Mix

Beans ~ Borlotti

Herbs ~ Basil

I've also got some red onion sets (Hyred) in plugs to get a good root system before planting them out.  I would have liked to get them in a bit earlier but there was a delay getting the order.  It also included some jerusalem artichokes which I've planted straight into the bed I'd prepared for them.  I haven't grown these before but the variety I've chose is Fuseau, a smooth skinned artichoke - the normal knobbly ones are such a pain to peel!

Last year I grew lots of plants for the globe artichoke bed, carefully planted them out, looked after them all summer and then forgot to protect the crowns for the winter.  So you can guess what happened next!  There's just one hardy survivor so as it's a bit late now to sow some more seeds, I decided to order some plants from Vegetable Plants Direct.  And after watching Gardener's World a few weeks ago, I now know to remove the globe from the main stem of the young plants and not to let any of the other globes get bigger than golf ball size.  This should make the plants stronger and more able to withstand the winter.  I have to admit that I'm really a globe artichoke novice - my only previous experience is with the char grilled marinated ones!

That's all for this month, next time the strawberries should be ready and I may even have got around to shredding the pile of prunings that's been earmarked for the veg garden paths!