Blog: The month when indoor and outdoor sowing overlaps!
Around Easter is always busy in the garden, especially when it falls late and sowing seeds in April makes it the peak time of the year.
Why is April so busy? Well, it’s the time of year that the sowing times of tender and hardy seeds overlap the most. This handily falls at the same time as the Easter holidays, so people often delay/bring forward sowings to this time.
By doing it this way, you also save electricity costs with a propagator/heat mat. Everything this year has been raised on one mat at a maximum of 20C and treated ‘mean to keep them keen’. As soon as they germinate, they’re off the mat in the conservatory, leading to compact, stronger growth.
This brief guide (and what I’ve sowed this month) is based on hardy and tender seeds, not the usual hardy, half-hardy annuals or vegetables. Let’s face it, we plan by space and time in our seed-sowing areas!
Sowing seeds in April – Hardy seeds
Hardy seeds, such as flowering annuals, are usually sown from March-May outdoors. If you live in a colder, wetter area, it’s often advised to start them off in pots or modules under glass in April. This will give you bigger plants to plant out when they’re hardened off.
Light is as important as heat, so bringing forward sowings any further will only lead to weak, leggy seedlings. Also, a few spares in warmer areas will act as good back-ups if the outdoor-sown ones get eaten by slugs. Organic gardeners have to cover all bases!
Sowing seeds in April outdoors gives you a good shot at an early crop of flowers or veg, such as beetroot or salad leaves. If there’s a long spell of cold weather, you have time to sow more. Sunflowers always fall into this category for me.
Tender seeds
Some seeds I’ve found have a ‘sweet spot’ for sowing. In my NE garden, courgettes and runner beans fall into this category. I’d have to wait until June to sow them outside, leading to very late crops. If I sow them any earlier than mid-April, the beans become uncontrollable under glass.
There are others, like cucumbers sown at this time, which stay in the conservatory. As space becomes available, when pelargoniums (geraniums) and the other half-hardy perennials move outside, they take over the space with tomatoes.
If you’re wondering about other tender seeds like chillies, peppers and tomatoes, they need a long season to fruit successfully. You’re better off buying young plants from your local garden centre.
Sowing seeds in April – my choices
Vegetables
Cucumber Mini Muncher: TRIAL from Suttons. Female flowering outdoor mini cucumber bred for UK summers. Fruits grow to 10-15cm with 1-2 per node. Plants are vigorous, early with high yields. Tolerant of powdery mildew, downy mildew, cucumber vein yellowing virus, plus cucumber mosaic virus resistance.
Cucumber Sweet Crunch: Very early to mature and prolific. Baby fruits are smooth-skinned, crisp, tender, sweet, nearly spineless and need no peeling. Good resistance to mildew.
Courgette Shooting Star: Yellow climbing courgette (last year’s leftovers).
Courgette Tondo Chiaro di Nizza: A trailing, compact Italian heritage producing pale green round 10cm fruit.
Lemon coriander: Unusual lemon fragrance and flavour, delicious as a garnish in salads, in Indian, SE Asian food, or stir-fries. To grow in windowsill pots.
Runner bean Black Knight: TRIAL from Suttons. Heritage variety supposedly grown by the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Edmund Knight, and passed to his congregants in the late 1800s. The beans look gnarly but they remain tender and juicy even when the 20-30cm pods become older. For the best tasting results, steam lightly to keep their colour.
Runner bean Summer Medley: Having a small garden, I like to grow ornamental veg. This is a mix of three varieties with different flower colours ( Lady Di, red; Desiree, white and Celebration, pink). The large leaves are perfect for training over a large obelisk or pergola. Height 3m.
Flowers
Cosmos Purity: HHA. Classic white single daisy, great for pollinators. Height 1.2m.
Sanvitalia (Mini sunflower): HHA. TRIAL from Thompson & Morgan. Well-branched plants to 15-25cm high, cascading to 60cm. Yellow ‘mini sunflowers’ with a dark brown centre.
Sunflower Ms Mars: HA. TRIAL from Thompson & Morgan. Dwarf (50-75cm) multi-stemmed plants with red/purple variegation on stems and leaves. Wine-coloured flowers with pink tips.
