This is the true start to the growing season, soil temperatures should getting warmer (although clay soils are always colder and slower), the birds will be nesting, the bees out foraging, seeds germinating, the grass growing, tadpoles swimming , early flowers delighting – everything and everywhere is springing into life (including the slugs, caterpillars and weeds). This is what we have all been waiting for, the brown winter landscape gently giving way to shades of green and bold splashes of yellow as Forsythia and fields of oil seed rape break open their buds.
It is time to do all those jobs you have been meaning to do since the autumn, plus more, it is time to sow seeds and cut the grass; delightful busy days in the spring sunshine. For me April is a time when I fill the porch with pots of seeds and seedlings, giving them a warm, early start away from the slugs and mice, somewhere handy where I can keep an eye on them and water them (but keeping them on the dry side). I will be sowing fast maturing salads, beetroot, mangetout peas, rainbow chard and spinach to fill the ‘hungry gap’ (that time when there is a lot of gardening activity but nothing much to harvest ). However these varieties will allow me to take a few tender young leaves for salads and feel the satisfaction once more that I am eating my own home grown produce (sprouting mung bean, lentil and chickpea seeds in the kitchen is very good and nutritious too). I will sow other crops such as carrots, squash, leek, etc… as well as a few flowers (Cosmos and sunflower) .
Outside I will directly sow my parsnip and Amaranth seed. Amaranth seed is sold in most health food shops, it is a native of South America and related to ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, its seeds and leaves are important sources of protein (it comes closer to meeting the protein requirements of the human body than either cow’s milk or soybeans). The seeds from the health food shop grow easily but beware, every seed of Amaranth I have ever sown has germinated, therefore sown thinly! I eat the Amaranth leaves all summer long, they are amongst the most nutritious vegetable greens you can grow and they are by far the easiest – a bit like spinach but with a texture more like cabbage and it freezes nicely for the winter months. Amaranth is disease-free and drought-tolerant, give it full sun, plenty of space, some reasonably rich soil with good drainage and it will grow between 3 to 5 foot high.
In the meantime let us enjoy our efforts from last autumn: daffodils, Anenome blanda, Fritillaria meleagris, Hyacinths, blue bells, etc… and the early flowering: Begenia, Polygonatum hybridum, Aubretia and Dicentra.