April Top Tips in the Garden

by John Harrison 2008

Author of the Best Selling "Vegetable Growing - Month by Month Guide"

April is a great month for the gardener. The soil is warming up nicely and in theory we have sunshine and showers, perfect growing weather. The clocks have gone forward so we have longer evenings to spend in our garden as well. Unfortunately in Britain, we have weather not a climate and April can go from being positively summer hot to snow.

Usually Easter falls in April and you may be surprised to know that there is more chance of snow at Easter than Christmas. So the rules for successful gardening in April is not to be in too much of a rush to plant out tender young plants. It's important to keep the horticultural fleece handy to protect against frost and to keep an eye open for frost on the weather forecasts.

Cloches really come into their own in April, not only do they protect from frost but the micro climate they create means your plants will leap ahead, even if the weather is poor. One good tip with a cloche is to place it on the ground a week or better still two weeks before you plant out. This will cause the soil temperature to rise by a couple of degrees and helps to avoid shocks to your plants when they leave that cosy greenhouse or coldframe.

If  you bring things on in a greenhouse or even a windowsill, don't make the mistake of planting out directly, even into a cloche covered patch. Plants need a little time to get used to the big outdoors and we use a process called 'hardening off' for this. As the name suggests, the plants become hardened to the cooler temperatures.

It's really not complicated, you move them from a windowsill or heated area of a greenhouse to a cooler part of the greenhouse for a few days and then move them into a cold frame. Leave the coldframe shut for the first couple of days, unless the weather is wonderful and sunny, which would over-heat them. After this, open the vent in the day for a few days and finally leave the vent open overnight. It will still give them some protection but it's not as exposed as outdoors.

If a cold snap develops whilst you are hardening off, you can insulate your coldframe to keep them warm. In an emergency newspapers laid several sheets thick and weighed down to stop them blowing away will do the job but a length of folded fleece is easier and more effective. By the end of a week or so, your plants will be ready to brave the big bad world and better equipped to cope if it snows.

Having covered protecting your plants against the weather, do remember now is the time when gardener's worst enemy is coming back to drive us mad. These evil creatures can make a row of tender seedling disappear overnight or reduce a plant to a skeleton in hours. I'm talking about the slug, of course.
I'm sure slugs must serve some purpose in the greater scheme of things, but to the gardener they are just the enemy.

In the old days we just scattered metaldehyde slug pellets around by the bucket load and killed them that way but there have been concerns about the potential effects on pets and wildlife with those. Now we more environmentally friendly methods of dealing with slugs and the good news is that these are actually more effective in many cases.

If you grow potatoes, you'll have had the experience of digging up a wonderful crop only to find holes occupied by horrible little slugs munching away. The best cure is to use the Nemaslug slug killer from the start. This biological control is comprised of thousands of tiny worms that cause no problem at all to anything except our enemy. Because they get under the surface, they get all the slugs unlike pellets.


I still use pellets in a lot of situations but having pets, I'm very cautious and only use the advanced ferramol based pellets, They're more rain resistant as well so I think they're better value for money. Incidentally, only ever scatter slug pellets very thinly. Piles are ineffective and wasteful. If they all disappear overnight, then scatter thinly again and smile. It means the slugs have eaten the first lot and crawled away to die

There are lots of safe and environmentally sound solutions to pests and problems now, thank goodness. Some of my older gardening books read like chemical warfare manuals.

Good luck, and let's hope April is fine after all my dire warnings.

Copyright © John Harrison 2008
Author of the Best Selling "Vegetable Growing - Month by Month Guide"