What to do in the Garden in April

Apr 1, 2011

The Veggie Bed

• Time to renovate the veggie garden- take out spent crops and vines of tomatoes, beans, corn etc. Clean up all diseased foliage.
• Dig over the soil adding compost as you go to aerate and bulk up the existing soil media.
• If you’re intending to re-plant winter veggies soon, add some sheep pellets or balanced plant food.
• Green Crops: If not, empty garden beds can be sown with a combination of mustard and lupin seed; both fix nitrogen in the soil. When these crops start to bud/flower cut the stems every 10cm and leave on the soil. After a month dig through your soil. This adds good ‘bulk’ to the gardens.
• Plant now: Autumn crops of lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and herbs such as parsley and coriander. It’s the best time to get autumn spinach underway – now it’s not so hot, it won’t ‘bolt to seed’.
• Sow now: Carrots, Broad Beans (cooler districts), Rainbow Chard (pretty stems in mid winter) and celeriac.
• Slugs & Snails: They’re celebrating the arrival of rain – go get to them before they get to your new plants!

Do not: Turn your back on the zucchinis – remember the relentless meals of marrow we had to chomp through as kids?

The Rest of the Garden

• Another cut-back: trim off spent flowers of summer perennials and trim back bushes to shape.
• Work Living Earth Compost  through the soil to condition it.
• Potted Plants: Top up the exposed roots of potted plants to reduce stress. Liquid feed all pots with Living Earth Liquid Compost
• Feeding: Fertilize citrus trees and acid-loving shrubs, such as camellias, daphnes and rhododendrons.
• NZ Plants: Our native plants grow well at this time of the year. They like a helping of compost and a top-dress of the slow release fertilizer, Osmocote For Natives.
• Fruit Trees: Clean up diseased pip and stone fruit, as well as fallen leaves. Burnets’ Gold Fruit & Citrus Fertilizer is great to feed all fruiting trees with.  Harvest time for feijoas, figs and citrus.