April Gardening To Do List

Monthly Calender for Newbie Gardener’s in the Southern Hemisphere.

April Notes.

April heralds the start of winter, time to do some jobs before it gets too wet & windy. Fix that fencing, restore drainage channels or transplant trees.
These kinds of things will make hunkering down for the winter that much easier.

PLANTING:
Sow Direct Seed for:
Vegetables:
Bulb Fennel
Cabbage
Chinese Cabbage (Open & Headed varieties)
Grain crops
Lettuce
Mizuna
Radicchio
Rocket
Spinach
Radish
Swede
Turnip
Garlic
Herbs:
Coriander
Pansy seeds & Heartese as companion to garlic
Tatsoi
Flowers:
Spring bulbs in your herbal ley
Perennial flowers
Annual Lupins

Sow or plant out:
Vegetables:
Lettuce
Spring Onions
Leeks
Watercress
Globe Artichoke suckers
Strawberries
Olive
Herbs:
Calendula
Chamomile
Parsley
Nigella
Verbena
Lemon Balm
Lemon Grass
Burdock
Valerian
Yarrow
Lavender
Flowers:
Cornflower
Aurora daisy
Dianthus
Pansy
Viola
Iceland poppy
Snap dragon
Anemone
Ranuncula
Corms
Iris
Potted Rose

In warmer zones: Also sow or plant out:
Broad Beans
Carrots
Beetroot
Okra
Silver beet
Endive
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Peas,
Celery

In frost free areas: also sow direct: Silver beet (pre-soaked seed), broad beans, peas, sweetpea, rosemary & thyme.
Plant Green Manure or a Cover crop of: Strawberry clover, faba bean, field pea, barley, cereal rye, oats, triticale or wheat.

In suitable soils grow: Alfalfa, fenugreek, annual lupin or vetch
Grow in frost free areas: Chick pea

GENERAL

Transplant: Nemesia, stocks
Divide: Burdock, chives, pyrethrum, bearded iris & shasta daisy
Prune: Cut back Globe artichoke, remove unwanted suckers. Cut back herbaceous perennials as they die back, now is a good time to divide if necessary. Trim blueberries , cranberries.

Prepare beds for:Garlic, asparagus, deciduous plantings
Mulch: Globe artichokes, herbaceous perennials with compost & rotten manure

Tie up berry bushes

Transplant:Nemsesia & stocks

Time to remove kikuyu, cover with black plastic & cut around edges deeply to ensure severing of roots. Leave for a week or so.

FEEDING
On damp soil: Apply fertiliser tea to: Brussels sprouts – 2 mths after planting out. Also to cabbage, celery, leek, lettuce & silver beet if necessary.
Use ? strength tea every 2 weeks to spinach until thinned

Apply seaweed tea to: Mango, strawberries planted in march
After watering fertilize: Any bulbs that have remained in the soil
Lightly fertilize: Globe artichoke

ORCHARD
Time to sow alfalfa, clover & vetch to herbal ley along with spring bulbs

Monthly liquid seaweed to all trees

HARVEST
HARVEST
Pumpkin
Potatoes both white & sweet
Olives
Feijoas
Shallots
Pickling Onions