Planting Guides - month by month - follow these proven tips  

 

APRIL

 

Nurture your soil

Compost plots.  Liquid manures and compost teas are important at this time of year for leaf and broccoli as the soils cannot take up other forms of nitrogen so easily .

Continue to revamp spent beds with green manure crops with lime added. This is not needed for root crops.  Add leaves to compost or compost separately with 3 to 4 handfuls of chook poo to each barrow load of leaves. Keep moist and turn regularly to aerate.

 

Plant care

Sow seeds:

Legumes – direct sow or in milk pots - broad beans, peas, snow peas

Leaf– lettuce, silverbeet, spinach,

Brassicas – in seed trays and plant out seedlings – broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, mizuna, rocket, asian greens – tatsoi

Root – direct - beetroot, carrots

Allium – direct or in seed trays - leeks, garlic

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Plant seedlings:

Root – garlic bulbs (harvest 16 weeks)

Herbs – coriander, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme

Take strawberry runners for new plants. Plant elsewhere next time.

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Maintenance

Prune finished flower heads and dead material. Remove finished plants such as beans, corn, squash, tomato, zucchini.

Tidy up strawberry plants, removing dead leaves. Clear the bed after taking runners.

 

Harvest

Dig potatoes, dry and store.

Harvest pumpkins after the first frost, leaving 10 cm of stem on and storing on their side in a sunny spot out of the weather.

Artichokes, aubergine, beetroot, capsicum,carrots, chilli, chokoes, coriander, jerusalem artichokes, lettuce, mitzuna, parsley, parsnips, potatoes, peas, silverbeet,spinach, spring onions, tatsoi tomatoes.

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Some nutrient rich plants

Azola: compost activator. Also releases nitrogen into the soil as it decomposes.

Borage: magnesium, iodine and iron

Carrot leaves: phosphorous &  magnesium

Chamomile:calcium,potassium, phosphorous

Chives: calcium, sodium

Comfrey: nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium, silica, iron  - put into compost as activator or slashed and used as mulch.

Garlic:sulphur, flouride, iron

Kelp: nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, iron

Lemon balm: phosphorous

Marigold:phosphorous Melon leaves: calcium

Parsley: potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron

Strawberry leaf: iron

Sunflowers: potassium    Tansy: potassium

Watercress is a source of phosphorous. This is important for legumes which fix nitrogen.

 It also contains potassium, calcium, sulphur, magnesium, fluorine, sodium. iron

Yarrow:nitrogen,potassium,phosphorous,iron.