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2 April
Having had variable success using peat free compost in which to raise seeds we have decided to use John Innes compost this year. At times last year germination was non-existent or once germinated seedlings or even young plant failed to flourish. Much of the compost contained large bits of wood. Seedlings especially can be susceptible to any impurities in the wood and also as the wood decomposes it reduces the amount of nitrogen in the compost and so can starve young plants.

Today we sowed our pepper seeds – Jimmy Nardello and Tequila Sunrise- and they joined the earlier sown tomatoes under the light on our Indoor Growing Garden.

Lots of sweet peas were also sown – we had more than planned as we had a free packet of seed from a gardening magazine to add to our chosen varieties one of which is short growing and isn’t supposed to need stacking. The sweet peas have been left in the greenhouse but covering with plastic propagator domes to try and protect them from the mice.

Dahlia, Gazania and Dimorphotheca seeds have also been sown and popped under the grow light.

3 April
The greenhouse is filling up well now – there are plants waiting to be planted out and seeds being sown.

The Japanese wineberry,  cobnut and kiwi Issai that we got from Victoriana Nurseries have been moved out of the greenhouse. These plants are looking really healthy and I think the kiwi has actually some flower buds developing. Issai grows mini kiwis and to look at the leaves you would never guess that it was a kiwi – they look totally different from the leaves of the kiwi plants on the plot. If frost is predicted we will throw some fleece over the kiwi as it would be a special event if we managed to harvest a kiwi.

Last year we bought a Fantasia nectarine tree from Thompson and Morgan. We planted it is a large pot outside our greenhouse and it now has flowers. It will also get frost protection if necessary – just imagine picking a nectarine from our own tree! (Or at least we thought it was Fantasia see here)

The space vacated by the fruit bushes will soon be taken up by seed trays. Today more broad beans, this time Crimson Flowered, various varieties of lettuce and brassicas were sown. Details of varieties can be found here.

4 April
The tomatoes are germinating well under the grow light and the dimorphotheca which are supposed to take between 10 and 12 days to germinate are also germinating!

Last week we noticed that both the automatic roof vents in the garden greenhouse had stopped working. Even at this time of year the temperatures in an unventilated greenhouse can rise considerably and so we wanted to replace them quickly. We ordered a couple from Harrod Horticultural at the end of last week and they were delivered this morning so one job for today was to get them fitted.

Perennials in the garden are coming into growth and so I cut back all the dry material which was left on over winter and also, weeded and loosened the soil in the perennial flower bed.

I also noticed a bit of new growth on the gunnera so it looks as though at least a part of the plant survived the winter.

6 April
Seeds are germinating very quickly under the growing light. Today I made a first attempt at cutting back the bamboos – we want to restrict the number of canes but which canes to choose? I’ve also dug up a couple of clumps to pop in tubs – our bamboo is fairly shallow rooted at so digging clumps up doesn’t take too much effort.

7 April
We haven’t had very much rain recently and the soil soon dries out so we watered our newly planting raspberry canes. Other than that time on the plot was spent rotovating beds in preparation for planting.

The cherry and pear trees have joined in the riot of fruit blossom – I hope that there are plenty of bees on duty.

8 April
A beautiful day today when you could just about imagine it was summer. We took advantage of the still conditions to sow parsnips directly into beds on the plot. It is impossible to sow parsnip seeds during windy conditions as the seed just blows away. Our parsnip growing method is here.

Also sown today were leek seeds but these were sown in pots in the greenhouse. We were a little late with this last year but it seems strange to be sowing seed when we are still harvesting last year's crop but we are still harvesting parsnips too.

The Conference pear tree in the garden is loaded with blossom – which seemed to manage to open unnoticed until today.

The onions, shallots, garlic and elephant garlic that had been started in pots in the greenhouse was planted out and the bed filled up with onion sets. Click here for more information and here

The ground has gone very quickly from wet and soggy to really hard and dry so weeding around the over-wintered onions was heavy going but it needed to be done.

 9 April
The mice have struck again in the greenhouse – this time they have eaten all the Crimson flowered broad bean seeds, so it looks as though we will just have white flowered beans – trust the mice to go for the choicest seeds.

We were busy again on the plot managing to plant lots of early potatoes – since we adopted out no trench methods planting potatoes is a breeze and produces as good a crop as it ever did. Click here for more information.

We also sowed our carrot seed in shallow trenches of compost to give them a good start in our clay soil and erected the usual home made enviromesh cloche to protect from carrot fly. Click here for more information.

10 April
The remaining seed potatoes have been planted.

The strawberries that were growing on in the greenhouse have been planted out into a new strawberry bed and the alpine strawberries have been weeded.

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11 April
Some of the seeds around the very edges of the grow light had began to lean towards the centre of the ‘garden hood’ and were becoming a bit drawn and so today I pricked them out and popped them in the cold greenhouse where I hope they will survive any cold and mouse attacks.

The herbs were becoming straggly and so have been cut back to encourage some fresh new growth.

It’s now snowing magnolia petals – it’s such a shame that the spectacular display is so short lived.

12 April
More vegetables were pricked out today –a full list can be found here.

We also bought another packet of Crimson Flowered Broad Beans to replace the ones eaten by mice.

The peppers sown early still haven’t germinated and so more have been sown – this time in a multi-purpose compost rather than John Innes. The John Innes mix became too muddy so perhaps the seeds rotted. Melon seeds have also been sown and with the peppers placed in the Indoor Growing Garden.

Aquilegia seeds that had spent over a week in the fridge have been sown and I am warned that it could be up to 2 months before any germination takes place.

13 April
More pricking out and sowing – it’s just that time of year.

Straw was removed from the banana plants but seeing the mushy remains left behind we have little hope that the bananas have survived. We are also our tree fern hasn’t survived the harsh winter conditions which is a huge disappointment.

14 April
More pricking out details here

15 April
Our four blueberry plants fruit at slightly different times so one is in full flower whilst the others are in bud. Blueberries need an acid soil and so, along with the cranberries planted in tubs, I treated them to an ericaceous feed.

The winter brassicas bed – what is left of it, was tidied and so the remaining plants also fed – they deserve it treat after the winter they have managed to survive.

16 April
More seed sowing see here. The parsnips that we didn’t manage to harvest have been dug up.

I redesigned the carrot ‘tent’ as last year watering caused the enviromesh to dip in the centre and so watering tended to be uneven – this year I have created a bamboo grid across the ‘roof’ to give a bit more support.

The ground is really dry so it is important to water anything newly planted and any seeds sown directly into the soil.

17 April
We sowed the first two varieties of peas and covered them with wire netting. Something nibbled them as they emerged last year so we are trying to cover all eventualities. Under the netting we have used slug pellets – not ideal but at least no birds or animals should get access to them. If the nibblers are weevils then we have a problem .

I also weeded the herb beds – I say herbs but this bed has been mainly taken over by about three varieties of mint. With weeds roots entangled in mint roots it wasn’t the easiest of jobs especially when the soil is dry and hard.

We have a border of lavender along some edges of our fruit beds which needed a trim – some of the trimmings will be used as cuttings to plug and gaps.

1 April

The cyclamen seeds that were left to soak yesterday were sown today – it was a bit tricky getting the wet seeds off my fingers. The quarter seed trays in which they have been sown have been fastened in a plastic bag to keep everything moist. Now I have a 1 – 2 month wait to see if they germinate.

We spent the afternoon on the plot and besides even more weeding and tidying we planted up 9 bags of potatoes – Maris Bard and Winston. These will be left in the greenhouse to protect from frost and hopefully produce some early potatoes. They will stay in the greenhouse until we need to move them out to make way for the tomatoes.

The fruit trees and bushes are either in full flower like the plums and gages or in bud like the pears and cherries. I just hope that the frost doesn’t ruin our chance of a good plum harvest. Even though some off the gooseberries have produced flowers I cut out stems criss-crossing in the centre of the bushes to try for the desired goblet shape!

The Joan J autumn raspberries are in the same bed as the more dominant Allgold and so I have taken some cuttings to try and grow some more plants to grow elsewhere and hopefully give them a better chance.

18 April
Planted a few cuttings from the bits of lavender trimmed yesterday – if they grow they will fill a few gaps in our lavender border.

19 & 20 April
The beds we earmarked for the Cobnut and Japanese Wineberry were tilled on the 19th ready for planting up on the 20th. We already had one cobnut given to us by a plot neighbour – I have a feeling that this will have been grown from a supermarket nut so have no idea of what type it is. It was planted elsewhere on the plot so this was dug up and replanted next to the Kent cob bought from Victoriana. Hopefully this will assist in the pollination of the Kent cob.

The lavender borders were weeded and tidied up – a pleasant job basking in the lavender perfume.

The cardoons received quite a battering over winter and seemed dead so one was dug out. Most of the plant looked dead but a small piece of plant had fresh growth and so this piece has been replanted. It’s worth trying to revive it is only for the sake of the bees that love the flowers.

21 April
One of our camellias has grown too wide and obstructs one of the paths in out garden and so rather severe pruning was required. It’s tricky timing pruning and almost as soon as the flowers fall the new growth appears. Anyway it has to be done and hopefully we won’t have sacrificed too many of next years flowers.

We have decided to keep kiwi Issai in a large pot in the garden so this has been planted up and now just needs to be given some sort of structure to climb up.

22 April
More seeds sown see here. One lot of seeds was Mangetout peas – Carouby de Mausanne which we are going to grow as much for its ornamental as well as cropping qualities so to give it a good start the seeds have been sown in pots and will be planted out as young plants.

23 April
The bamboo in the garden has been thinned quite ruthlessly as a thicket had formed. Some pieces that were dug out have been planted in tubs to take the place of a couple of bamboos that didn’t survive last winter.

25 April
We visited the plot mainly to cut the grass paths. The ground is still very dry and so lots of time was spent watering the newly sown seeds and things that have been newly planted.

The peas about a week ago are germinating well so I hope nothing is tempted to nibble the young shoots. Carrots and parsnips are also germinating.

One surprise find was some florets appearing on a couple of broccoli plants - one white and one purple. We thought that we had missed out on a broccoli harvest completely so the few shoots that these two plants manage to provide will be most welcome.

Once again one of the kiwis planted on the plot has masses of flower buds – unfortunately as only one of the two plants is sporting buds it looks as though we will be kiwiless again! I’m not sure whether the plant with buds is male or female but whichever it is it needs the other one to flower at the same time if we stand any chance of fruit.

There’s lots of flower on the quince that we planted last year and so hopefully we will have more than just three fruits this year – just need to think of how we will use them!

27 April
The first lot of broad beans have been planted out – they were started in pots in the greenhouse. As the soil is still really dry each planting hole was filled with water before filling with soil – this way the roots will have plenty of moisture to get the going. The same treatment was given to the half dozen cabbage plants that were also planted out. These were the ones that managed to avoid being sabotaged by mice.

Back at home I have started the mammoth yearly task of repotting my houseplants starting with a collection of streptocarpus.

30 April
The Loch Ness blackberry was planted on the plot. Other than that the dry conditions mean we are spending lots of time watering seedlings.

Despite the really dry conditions we managed to clear another bed on the plot after digging up all the remaining leeks.

Much time is still being given to watering the seedlings and new plantings.

28 April
I had been hoping that all the perennials for the front garden would arrive before I started planting but the ones that had arrived were growing quickly and really needed planting out and so I have made a start on planting up the front garden bed hoping that I have left appropriate spaces for the penstemons and salvias which are still to come.One plant that did arrive today was a thornless blackberry – Loch Ness - bought from Victoriana Nurseries. We wanted a thornless blackberry to plant alongside the Japanese wineberry on the plot and were impressed by the quality of the plants at Victoriana.

The variety wasn’t available at any of the local garden centres and so we paid a little more to get the variety that we wanted as it came highly recommended.