The weather is warming up and there are plenty of rain showers to welcome in the Spring! Your grass is growing, flowers are blooming and birds are building their nests. Your garden should be starting to really come alive again after winter. This means there’s plenty of things to do and gardening jobs this month!
Lawn
The grass on your lawn will have started growing and you should have already taken out the lawn mower. It’s a good idea to put the settings on high at this time of year. Keeping your grass long helps to ensure it stays healthy and is prepared for summer.
Aeration
It’s a great time of year for an aeration treatment. Hollow tine aeration or spiking both help to reduce compaction and increase the nutrients that reach the grass roots. It prepares your lawn for hot summer temperatures that could bake the soil, making it hard and preventing water from draining through. An aeration treatment ensures that no matter the temperature, water can still penetrate the layers and hydrate your grass rather than sitting on top and causing waterlogging.
Weeding
While your grass is growing at this time of year, so are the dandelions and other weeds! Pull them up from the very base of the plant to get the roots.
Fruit and Vegetables
Weeding: Like with your lawn, your vegetable patches will need weeding to ensure that unwanted plants don’t take up room that your vegetables need.
Carrots: You can get planting your carrot seeds now, if you haven’t already. As they start to develop, thin them out to make sure that each plant has space to grow into a good sized carrot. It’s a good idea to thin carrots in the evening because there are fewer carrot flies around!
Asparagus: Harvest asparagus spears before they reach 18cm so they stay tender and delicious.
Tomatoes: Plant tomato seeds. Keep them indoors to sprout (and to protect them from any late frost) and then transfer them outside as they develop to help the stems grow strong.
Sweet Peas: Plant sweet peas out in the garden and encourage them to grow up canes or other supports by wrapping the tendrils around the support as the plant grows.
Early April vegetables: Plant onions, cauliflower, beetroot, broad beans, turnip, radish, spinach and lettuce in your garden from Early April
Mid April vegetables: Plant celery, courgette, chard, sweetcorn and leeks from mid-April.
Plant herbs: You can plant coriander, dill, parsley and basil in pots around your garden or in a herb bed.
Flowers
Plant summer-flowering bulbs: It’s the perfect time to buy summer flowering bulbs and plant them in your garden to get beautiful displays in a few months’ time.
Remove old flowers: Remove the heads of old flowers from spring flowering bulbs, such as winter pansies, as they wilt and die. This will encourage the plants to continue flowering throughout spring. Remove heads from tulips and daffodils too and let the leaves die back over the coming months naturally.
Winter Heather: Trim winter flowering heather to prevent the plants growing too tall and becoming leggy.
Lift and divide perennials: lift and divide perennial plants to get more plants for your garden and to improve their growth.
Feed trees, shrubs and hedges: Use a balanced, slow-release fertiliser and fork it into the base of trees, shrubs and hedges around your garden to encourage them to grow healthily. Roses in particular benefit a lot from a this.
Other Gardening Jobs
Top up raised beds: use quality soil or compost to top up raised beds. They tend to settle and reduce, particularly in their first few years, so will need topping up to keep them full and healthy.
Install a waterbutt: If you don’t have a waterbutt, this is a great time to install one at the bottom of a downpipe. You’ll harness all the spring rain, which can be particularly helpful for keeping your lawn and plants watered during dry periods in the summer.
Bird baths and feeders: Keep bird baths and feeders full to encourage birds into your garden. They’re great for keeping pests like slugs under control!
