kitchen garden: The best gardening tips in April
Contents
Whether sowing or planting: In our gardening tips for the kitchen garden in April we tell you what to do this month.
utility gardeners already have their hands full in April.
Because this month is a month of busy sowing and planting, laying the foundation for a successful season in the kitchen garden.
In our gardening tips we tell you what to do.
Sowing parsley root
Our gardening tips for April start with the parsley root.
It is less well known than leaf parsley.
The white roots are often confused with parsnips, but are smaller.
They give soups and vegetable dishes a mild parsley aroma.
The 'Berliner' variety develops smooth, easy to peel roots with thin skin.
Sow the root parsley in a sunny bed of humus-rich soil in mid to late April, when the soil has dried out well.
If the young plants are too dense, you should separate them at a distance of five to eight centimetres.
Important: During the main growth period of the roots, i.e. from the beginning to mid-June, water generously!
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Manure fruit trees and shrubs
Fruit trees and berry bushes are grateful for a nutrient supply in spring.
That is why one of our gardening tips is: Spread about three liters of compost per square meter on each tree slice by early April at the latest.
Compost is ideal as a fertilizer for fruit trees and shrubs, as it provides a lot of potassium and calcium - nutrients that are particularly needed for fruit formation.
One exception is blueberries: As bog plants they cannot tolerate compost.
Garden tips for planting currants
Place currants so deep that the root ball is covered with soil five centimetres deep.
This stimulates the formation of new canes from the root area.
If you want to grow several currants on a trellis, plant the bushes high enough so that the root ball is flush with the surface of the soil, because you don't want a lot of new branches to form.
When planting, leave only the three strongest shoots and fix them in a fan shape to the tensioning wires.
Prefer cucumbers and melons in time
Cucumbers and melons are sensitive to any disturbance in the root area.
Avoid the usual transplanting (pricking out) of the seedlings during the pre-cultivation.
Place two to three seeds per pot (about two centimetres deep).
After germination you should only leave the strongest specimens.
The seeds of newer snack or miniature cucumbers are relatively expensive and a seed packet usually contains only five seeds.
You should therefore prefer to grow the required young plants individually in small pots or pot plates.
The basic rule is: wait until the seedlings have rooted well through the pot before planting.
Sowing radish
You can grow radishes from spring to autumn - but the right choice of variety is crucial for success.
From April onwards, spring and summer radishes can be sown like the red, white and pink varieties of the popular 'Easter greeting' variety.
favour beans
Broad beans and runner beans are sensitive to cold, so pre-cultivation in pots is recommended, especially in rough areas.
From the beginning of May, place the young plants in the vegetable patch under fleece, together with the pot ball - preferably in mixed cultivation with sweet corn.
The advantages of early cultivation: you can harvest earlier and the young plants are safe from bean flies and snails.
Garden tips for planting bulbs
Soak the bulbs overnight in room-warm water before planting.
In this way they will take root earlier and gain a foothold in the bed more quickly.
The bulbs are usually planted in rows.
The distance between the rows should be 15 to 20 centimetres.
Once all the bulbs have been planted, the rows are heaped up with soil using the back of the rake and then pressed firmly into place.
plant potatoes
In mild regions you can plant potatoes from the beginning of April.
In late frost situations you should wait until mid-April to be on the safe side.
A light night frost, however, does not do too much damage to the young plants, as the tubers will then sprout well again.
Place the seed potatoes in soil troughs no deeper than ten centimetres and maintain a planting distance of about 30 centimetres in the row and 40 centimetres between the rows.
Important: Carefully cover pre-germinated potatoes with soil so that the soft sprouts do not break off.
seeding a salad
Salad plants have a relatively short cultivation period.
If you have now transplanted the first home-grown young plants into the bed,
you should sow the next lettuce seeds straight away - this way you can harvest fresh lettuce throughout the garden season.
Cut back peach tree
In order for the peach tree to remain fertile and produce many peaches year after year, consistent annual pruning is extremely important.
Therefore, remove at least three-quarters of the shoots that bore fruit the previous year immediately after harvesting or in spring just before flowering.
The rest should be trimmed down to three buds so that they can form new fruit shoots for the next year.
Make sure that the crown is thinned out as evenly as possible by pruning.
Important gardening tips for chickpeas in the vegetable patch
Legumes like chickpeas, like all legumes, have a special value in the garden.
As they form a symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing nodule bacteria, they do not require any additional fertilisation and also increase soil fertility.
Subsequent crops such as nutrient-hungry cabbages are also well supplied by this.
Sowing takes place as soon as the danger of night frost is over.
Before this, the soil is thoroughly loosened with a rake or cultivator and the seeds are placed in rows of 10 to 15 centimetres apart in two to three centimetre deep seed furrows (row spacing 20 centimetres).
Harvesting then takes place eight to twelve weeks after sowing.
Woodruff also grows in the garden
When collecting in deciduous forests, woodruff is easily recognized by its angular stem and the leaf whisks, even by laymen.
For May punch or tea, pick the herb just before the white flowers open.
The aroma reminiscent of fresh hay unfolds when the bunches are slightly wilted. In small doses,
the ingredients have a calming effect, in larger quantities they cause headaches when combined with alcohol.
In the garden, woodruff thrives under ornamental or berry bushes.
The easy-care plants quickly cover the soil and keep goutweed, couch grass, couch grass and creeping buttercup in check by root excretion.
Jerusalem artichoke: Don't forget the bed border
If you want to grow Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) in your garden, you should think about the border right from the beginning of the bedding.
This is because the perennial, frost-hardy sunflower species can also penetrate neighbouring beds with its underground runners.
As a root barrier, it is best to dig 30 centimetre wide strips of solid pond liner vertically along the edges of the bed.
pierce tomatoes
If you have sown your tomatoes in seed trays, you will need to prick the young tomatoes as soon as they unfold their first real leaves.
Carefully lift the roots out of the ground with a special piercing stick or the handle end of a tablespoon and place them one by one in small pots of vegetable soil.
Setting up vegetable nets
Close-meshed nets effectively protect your vegetable crops from the larvae of vegetable flies (cabbage flies, carrot flies, onion flies).
Cover the plants with the nets immediately after sowing or planting to prevent the flies from laying eggs.
Long spring steel stirrups are useful as net supports so that the nets do not rest directly on the plants.
The edges should be sealed with soil or boards.
Planting time for quince
The wood of young quince trees is more sensitive to frost than that of apples or pears.
Therefore, quinces are best planted in spring.
As the strikingly large white-pink flowers do not open until the end of April, they are usually spared the spring frosts.
Promote beneficial organisms
Wild bees, lacewings, ladybirds and parasitic wasps are among the most useful helpers in the orchard.
They find shelter in bundled hollow elder branches, strong reed stalks or special insect nesting boxes.
The larvae of the lacewing eat only aphids until they pupate.
Each larva eats several hundred aphids during this period, which has earned them the nickname "aphid lion".
Cut back raspberries and blackberries
For summer raspberries you should now shorten all rods to 1.60 to 1.80 metres.
In the case of blackberries, shortly before the new bud burst, remove all rods that have been removed from the previous year at ground level.
After pruning, the raspberry and blackberry beds are best mulched with bark compost.
Important: Do not apply the mulch layer until the spring sun has dried out the upper soil layers.
Gentle harvesting of rhubarb
The first tender rhubarb stalks, which are ready for harvest from the end of April, have the best aroma.
However, resist over-exploitation in order not to unnecessarily weaken the rhubarb.
Younger plants can be harvested every two to three weeks, stronger ones also at shorter intervals.
As a rule of thumb: at least two thirds of the stems and leaves must remain standing.
So, at most three to five of the strongest stems should be twisted out with a jerk, if possible directly at the base.
Flowers should always be removed immediately, as they unnecessarily cost the plants strength.
grow cabbage
Cabbage plants sown in a greenhouse or hotbed are usually strong enough at the beginning of April to be transplanted to the field.
Place the young plants at a sufficient distance: depending on size and cultivation time,
the plants need 40 centimetres (e.g. broccoli) to 60 centimetres (e.g. late white cabbage varieties) planting distance both in the row and to the adjacent rows.
The young plants should be planted quite deep so that they are sufficiently stable,
and it is best to sprinkle a little algal lime into the planting hole to prevent cabbage hernia.
Important: Change the bed annually!
Early strawberry harvest with fleece
Our gardening tips for strawberry lovers: By covering your garden with one or two layers of garden fleece,
you can bring forward the harvest of your strawberries by about a week.
If you additionally cover it with perforated foil, you can even pick berries a few weeks earlier.
The covering is applied as soon as the spring sun has warmed the soil.
If April brings us summery temperatures once again, there is a risk of heat accumulation!
Fleece and foil should then be removed at least over lunchtime: Above 28 degrees Celsius, growth disturbances threaten.
As soon as the plants start to blossom, remove the fleece and foil in any case, so that pollination by bees and bumblebees is ensured.
The strawberry blossom weeder is on its way
With the first warm days in April, the dark strawberry blossom weeder, which is only four millimetres in size, leaves its winter storage in the ground litter.
The beetles gnaw at the flower stalk below the bud and lay their eggs in the bud which later dries up.
A female can lay over 100 eggs and damage a corresponding number of flowers. Now use suitable plant protection products to control the beetles.
Fruit trees: Tie down new shoots
Towards the end of the month, most fruit trees are already showing clear signs of new shoots.
Steeply rising new shoots, which are useful for building up crowns,
should now be weighted down with weights or brought into a somewhat flatter position with wire.
The greater their angle to the vertical axis, the weaker they grow and the earlier they bear flowers and fruit.
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