April Garden Guide
The Guide to April Garden Activities on most parts of Aotea: seed saving, planting and seed sowing, propagation, harvesting, pests and diseases to watch out for, plus orchard activities:
Seed saving season is upon us!
Take a look around your garden, and notice any plants that are going to seed (or that you would like to collect seeds from!) Here are some plants that are seeding now: sugar snap peas, beans, sweet peas, orange cosmos, zinnias, parsleys, fennels, coriander, carrots, dill, lettuce, silverbeet, carrots, tomatoes etc. Check out the full article here:
Planting for Winter
It is time to start planting winter crops if you haven’t already, although for many on Aotea it is usually still terribly dry.
If you had a productive summer garden, the soil will need a top up with compost or vermicast before planting hungry winter crops. If you don’t have any, water the planting holes with a liquid fertiliser such as fish/sea weed extract just prior to planting and water the plants in well.
Water new plantings deeply at least 2-3 times a week, (lettuces appreciate daily watering while it is so dry), preferably in the afternoon, so plants and soil have a chance to soak it up over the cool night. Then as autumn progresses into winter, shift your watering time away from evenings as it will encourage slugs and snails, as well as chill the soil down.
Green Manure: if you aren’t planning on a winter garden or are leaving some beds fallow, consider planting a green manure.
Sow/Plant now:
All your cool-season greens:
Single Plantings (will provide ongoing harvest through the winter): curly kale and cavalo nero, silverbeet, frisee endive eg pancalieri, escarole, celery, parsley, sprouting broccoli eg Tasty stems
Single plantings of Perennials: globe artichoke (will produce in mid-late spring) lovage, sweet marjoram and garlic chives
A few successive plantings (these mostly supply only one harvest per plant/a short harvesting window): endive, spinach, fennel, escarole, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, pak choy
Leeks: these divine members of the onion family take their time to fatten up, so get started with them - the earlier the better. Prep beds with plenty of organic matter or rotted down manure/compost.
Flowers: perennials such as hollyhocks, edible annuals such as calendula, pansies, violas, cornflowers and snapdragons, and sweetly scented ones such as sweet peas, stocks, wall flowers, carnations and good old alyssum.
Direct Sow:
Coriander : always soak seed for 24 hrs before sowing, use fresh seed AND KEEP WELL WATERED TO STOP THEM GOING TO SEED. DO NOT plant out coriander seedlings - they are taprooted, pots are too small, root hits the bottom and when planted will go to seed very fast. Direct sow coriander every two weeks to keep a good supply.
Corn Salad/mache/Nusslisalat - this is a tender green that germinates in cool weather and forms a pretty rosette which can be pulled out and used as a salad green with mild nutty flavour. It seems to resist slugs and caterpillars very well!
Rocket, mizuna, tatsoi: broadcast seed, but protect against caterpillars. These brassica greens love the cooler season, so plenty of opportunity later in the year if too hot/dry now. Several small sowings are better than one large one.
Dwarf/Bush Beans - last chance- (plant into damp soil and water just once then cover for a few days til they start to pop up, then resume watering with care- beans will rot if over-watered). These also do great in 13 litre pots 4 plants per pot. These can be grown in a greenhouse right through to June. Fin de Bagnol is a great variety for this.
Carrots (soak seed for 24 hrs before sowing), use fresh seed, keep well watered for up to 3 weeks til they emerge, guard against birds, slugs and snails.
Beetroot: guard against birds, slugs and snails. Not much time left to get beetroot off to a good start, they really like warm, rich soil to do well. Best before end of March if you can. They tend to hold well through the winter and any left unharvested will bolt in spring.
Turnips, swedes, kohlrabi, daikon, and radish: these are all in the cabbage family so will need to be protected against caterpillars as well as snails and slugs
Broadbeans and peas: these can be sown through to end of April. You can also germinate these in a seed tray and plant our direct to the garden when they emerge)
Plant a few seed potatoes now for a late autumn harvest
Propagation
Strawberry plants that fruited over summer will be running now and these runners may be rooting into the strawberry bed and alongside. When you can see the plantlets sending out roots, snip them off and pot them up ready for strawberry planting in a new bed in MAY!! Keep plants that have fruited this summer for a second cropping, and get rid of plants that are more than two seasons old - they will encourage disease, and their crowns will get overcrowded, producing small, low quality fruit next summer.
Take cuttings of perennial herbs, shrubs and flowers while the weather is warm, roots will strike more quickly.
Harvesting
Kumara can be harvested any time from now to the end of April. They will keep getting bigger, as long as your soil hasn’t dried out too much, however the longer you leave them, the more risk there is of damage from rats and wireworms. Set those rat traps and check DAILY until harvest is complete.
Dig carefully to avoid damaging tubers, as they will not store well. Snip off long tails and trim off small damaged areas, and allow these small cuts to heal by curing in a warm spot for 48 hrs before storing. Curing not only heals wounds to the kumara but helps the starches to transform into sugars and the kumara will taste so much better. Separate any damaged kumara, and eat these first as they will rot in storage. Store clean, unblemished kumara in double or triple layered paper bags such as potato bags in a cool dry spot safe from rats. Check regularly as invariably some will rot.
Harvest any remaining rockmelons when the skin develops an orange flush and the characteristic aroma develops. Most rockmelons will slip from the vine when ready, meaning they simply release from the vine when tugged. Be careful - rats know when melons are ripe from the scent too, and will eat holes into the fruit simply to get to the seeds, so have your eyes peeled and your nose tuned in! Check them before nightfall.
Watermelons are ripe when the spot where they lie on the soil turns deep yellow, and the tendril closest to the fruit withers and dies.
Pumpkins, butternuts, cupolas and buttercups are all getting close to harvest time. Be careful not to harvest too early as the flavour will be insipid, the skin won’t have toughened up and they will not store. The stalk leading to the fruit should be very hard and dry. Butternuts should have a warm orange/brown skin, with little green streaking. Cupolas should be completely orange/tan. They will hold on the plant for ages, plus new fruit will keep ripening right into May or even June in a sunny spot. Buttercups and pumpkins should mostly develop an orange patch where the skin is in contact with the ground. PROTECT FROM RATS.
Watch out for:
Caterpillars - they are abundant at this time of the year. Check your plants regularly for damage. Cover beds with insect mesh, plant companion plants to attract insects that will control caterpillars such as parasitic and predatory wasps. Spray plants as soon as you spot the damage with Bt (a bacterial spore).
Aphids (plant alyssum, let your coriander flower!)
Birds after your seedlings (use nets)
Green Veg Bugs - see Feb/March to do list
Tomato fruit worm- a caterpillar that eats its way and out of tomatoes, even unripe green ones. You will recognise it by entry holes eaten into fruit, often accompanied by a larger exit hole with messy frass (insect poo). Pick damaged fruit and destroy the caterpillar inside if it’s still there. Also eats into corn cobs, caterpillars crawl up the corn silks into the top of the cob. Spray plants including fruit with Bt.
Powdery mildew on zucchini, cuc, melon and pumpkin plants- this usually comes after dewy cold nights. Remove affected leaves, spray plants thoroughly with a 20% milk solution - this does actually work!
Monitor for rats in the kumara patch and around capsicums, melons and pumpkins/squash.
In the Orchard
Feed citrus with sheep pellets or chook manure followed by a layer of woody mulch over the top. Do this 3 x per year. Last application in April.
Summer prune your stonefruit (plums, peaches, apricots) after fruiting. Here is an awesome guide from Kath Irvine of Edible Backyard
Harvest pears and apples- colour should be warm and seeds should be black. Kakas are very hungry - netting fruit trees is possible as long as the nets come right down to the ground.
Bananas and casimiroa (white sapote) will be fattening up now. Harvest bananas whent the fruit are rounded out, not angular. The colour can still be green, but should be lightening up a little.
