Top tips this month !

What a wonderful Spring so far, but as usual a sting in the tail, it gets cold at night with even a light frost so do not plant or sow Runner bean/French beans, courgettes etc until at least early May.
Start them off in pots but take them in when cold nights threaten.

“Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is. The birdies are on the wing, but that’s absurd, the wings are on the birds.”  Not here they aren’t.  Caught the pheasants eating over-wintered lettuce and using the onion patch as a dust bath!

With the problems of getting seeds and plants getting a little easier (by mail order) one will have to plant them out a little later than usual but do not put them all out in one go, try to stagger sowing times and put some plants outside and some in containers to prevent a glut.  Or give the surplus to neighbours.

Tip (literally). Sowing small lightweight seed such as tomatoes/lettuce, without them all bunching up in the pot, sharpen a pencil, wet the point and you can then pick up the individual seed and pop them around the container to germinate. No tomato seeds, then use those from the salad tomatoes you eat.

Plus the kids can grow turnip tops, carrot tops, lettuce bases, even sow mustard and cress in egg shells, get carefully cracking.  Adults can grow celery the same way, cut the stems about 2 inches from the base, put the root in a cup of water until the roots emerge, plant out and blanch with paper or plastic as they grow.

Runner bean supports – new easier way to put up frames.  Push the sticks (any long thing will do, about 6 – 7 ft long) in the soil at about 40/45 degree angle to each other either side of the trench.  The cross over point should be about waist height so you have an X shape.  Lay extra sticks across the top of the crossover and tie at that point.  The tips of the sticks more or less hang over the base.  This allows the beans to hang down outside the frame and makes picking so much easier, simple to water, less sticks and allows bees to pollinate without trouble. 

You might need to train the beans when they get to the X point, many do ok without a helping hand. 

Plant salad crops down the centre of the row, be inventive. 

Pick and enjoy!

Greenish fingers