Kitchen garden: the best gardening tips in April
Add herb
In the garden stores are now in April early herbs such as chervil, sage, rosemary, marjoram, chives and lemon balm offered in the pot. Since they come from the greenhouse, you should harden the plants first in the pot in a moderately sunny to partially shady nook, before you place it into the patch. This herb needs a sunny spot in the garden with a permeable, moderately moist and not to nutrient-rich soil, since most developing herbs in water and nutrient shortages the best flavor.
Pruning for herbs
Thyme, lavender, sage, winter savory , and oregano are botanically half woody shrubs and therefore at the base. So that the plants are aging and not fall apart over time, you should prune it in spring with a hedge trimmer about an inch above the ground. This keeps the plants compact and bushy beautiful. Rosemary is an exception: Cut the shrubs and saplings without peeling up a little above the shoots.
Beans prefer
Bush beans and pole beans are sensitive to cold, therefore, recommended especially in tough situations in the pre-culture pots. Place the young plants in early May under fleece with pot bales in vegetable – preferably in mixture with corn sugar. Advantages of early cultivation: You can harvest earlier, and the young plants are beans before flying and screw secure.
Coal plant
In the greenhouse or cold frame cabbage plants are sown in early April usually so strong that they can be implemented into the field. Place the young plants with enough space: Depending on the size and culture time, the plants need in both the series and to the adjacent rows is 40 centimeters (eg broccoli) to 60 centimeters (eg, late cabbage varieties), planting distance . One sets the seedlings quite deep, so they are stable enough, and scattered at best a little marine algae into the planting hole to the clubroot disease prevention. Important: Annual change the bed!
Sow lettuce
Lettuce plants have a relatively short culture period. If you home-grown young plants into the patch implemented only now, you should take the next sowing the seeds salad – so you can all the gardening season through fresh lettuce harvest.
Onions stuck
Soak onion in front of the plant over night in room hot water. They form earlier and take roots in the border faster feet. Important: When planting firmly press!
Potato plant
In mild areas you can plant potatoes from early April. In late frost layers precaution you should wait until mid-April. A light frost will differ from the young plants are not too much damage, since the tubers float by then well again. Place the seed potatoes in a maximum of four inches deep Erdmulden and hold up a planting distance of about 30 inches in the row and 40 inches between the rows. Important: Pre-Sprouted potatoes covered with soil gently so not to break the soft seeds.
Jerusalem artichoke: Beets Slabs not forget
If you garden in the Jerusalem artichoke Helianthus tuberosus) grow like (you should be equal to the Beetanlage to think of the enclosure. After all, the perennial, hardy sunflower can with underground foothills and in adjacent beds penetrate. Dig a root barrier on the top 30 centimeters wide strips vertically from a solid liner along the Beetränder.
Germination test for cucumber seeds
Who even seeds of lettuce or pickles ‘Tanja’ or ‘Vorgebirgstrauben’ has won as it should, sowing a seed sample to make before. To reduce diseases is also recommended that the pretreatment of the seed. Both can connect to fine: Place the seeds for 12-24 hours in cold camomile or valerian tea. The Teebad increases the resistance of the plants and later helps the deaf to read seed coats: Only seeds that sink to the bottom of the dish, and later germinate, all swim up and be skimmed off barren.
Tomato transplant
If your tomatoes are sown in seed trays, plants need to isolate the young when they first true leaves unfold. Depending on the sowing date is usually the case in early April. Lift the roots gently with a special Pikierholz or the handle end of a tablespoon out of the ground and place them individually into small pots of vegetable earth.
Vegetable networks set up
With fine mesh to protect your vegetable crops effectively against the larvae of flies vegetables (cabbage fly, carrot fly, onion fly). Cover to prevent plant immediately after sowing or planting and the networks to the oviposition of flies. Meaningful are long made of spring steel as a support network so the networks do not rest directly on the plants. The border areas should be sealed with earth or boards.
Healthy vines
Vines should always sunny warm places, for example on the south side of the house to plant. This is also true for new robust varieties like ‘Vanessa’ or ‘Nero’, which are also suitable for less favorable locations. Young vines in pots grow better. They can be planted from mid March to early June.
Gentle rhubarb harvest
The first tender rhubarb stalks, the April harvest is ripe at the end, have the best flavor. Resist the rape but to weaken the plants unnecessarily. Younger plants can be harvested every two to three weeks, even powerful individuals at shorter intervals. Rule of thumb: At least two thirds of the stems and leaves should remain. Turn so at most three to five of the strongest stems with a start as possible directly at the base out. Flowers should always be removed immediately, since they cost the power plant unnecessarily.
Currant plants properly
Put currants so deep that the root ball is covered with earth five. The formation of new rod is excited from the root area. If you want to pull together several currants on a trellis, plant the shrubs so high that the root ball with the surface, because there are very few new branches are formed. When planting, pass only the three strongest shoots are fixed and they fanned the tension wires.
Fertilize fruit trees
Fruit trees and berry bushes are grateful for nutrient delivery in the spring. Control no later than early April of each tree on disk about three liters of compost per square meter. Compost is an ideal fertilizer for fruit trees, as it provides a lot of potassium and calcium – nutrients that are needed for the fruiting of greatest priority. An exception is blueberries : They tolerate no bog plants as compost .
Fertilize strawberries
Work flat shortly before flowering two to three liters per square meter of nutrient-rich garden compost or manure special Beer (dosage according to package directions) around the strawberry plants into the ground.
Add strawberry beds
For the strawberry planting in the spring only come potted seedlings in question. Pots made of pressed peat must be removed before planting necessarily because the roots of the solid wall can penetrate only with difficulty. Important: Remove to strengthen the plants in the first year, the foothills and flowers and watering the young plants regularly.
Fruit trees: shoots down new bind
Towards the end of the month for most fruit trees already identified a significant new growth. Steeply emerging shoots, which are useful for the crown structure, you should now complain with weights or bring with wire in a somewhat flatter position. The greater the angle to the vertical axis, the weaker they grow and the sooner they can take flowers and fruits.
Raspberries and blackberries cut back
In summer raspberries should all rods at 1.60 to 1.80 meters Shorten now. When the blackberries previous year, shortly before the new shoots all worn rods from the ground level removed. After cutting it mulches the raspberry and Brombeerbeete best with bark compost. Important: Replace the mulch until then, when the spring sun, the upper soil layers dry.
Planting time for quince
The wood of young quince tree is frost sensitive than that of apples or pears. Therefore, we planted quince is best in spring. Since opening, the strikingly large white pink flowers until the end of April, they remain mostly spared from the spring frosts.
Promote beneficial
Wild bees, lacewings, ladybugs and parasitic wasps are among the most useful helpers in the orchard. In bundled hollow elder branches, vigorous reed stems or special insect nest boxes they find shelter.
