Kem Ormond’s vegetable garden: Tasks and tips for April and daylight saving

The end of daylight saving means fewer evenings pottering in the garden. Photo / 123rf

Kem Ormond is a features writer for The Country. She’s also a keen gardener. This week, she has advice on jobs that can be done in the vegetable garden in April, before winter arrives and it starts to get cold and dark.

OPINION

This week brings the start of April, and today, the end of daylight saving time. While this may mean lighter mornings, it will get darker quicker in the evenings.

So, there won’t be the lovely long evenings to potter in the vegetable garden like we have been enjoying.

While I have given you ideas on preparing your vegetable garden for the winter period, I thought a reminder of some of the jobs you may still need to do would not go amiss.

With the colder nights coming, you will see a decrease in pests, but remember that slugs and snails will be on the prowl, so you will need to keep on top of them.

Harvesting

April is really your last chance to harvest any surplus vegetables before winter and the cold arrive.

With pears being ripe, it is a suitable time to bottle a few or even dehydrate them to use at a later date.

I have been tidying up a lot of my vegetable beds, giving them a feed of my compost.

In the next few weeks, I will write about the various forms of compost you can make and the best uses for each.

If you have carrots planted, check to see if they need to be thinned and gather up the last of your tomatoes for green tomato chutney.

With most of the sunflower seeds having been snapped up by the greenfinches, the last of the sunflower heads and stalks will be chopped up and placed on my large vegetable patch to decompose over winter and then be dug in.

This goes for my sweetcorn that is finished, too.

You also can roughly chop the stalks of both and place them around your citrus or avocados.

I am harvesting my cauliflower and broccoli, ready for freezing, as I will use this over winter when the price seems to rocket.

If you have any pumpkins on the vine, it is time to harvest them and store them somewhere dry over winter.

You are going to enjoy having them to make pumpkin soup and adding them to your roast vegetable salads.

I had such success this year with my basil that many of my friends are being given a jar of my homemade pesto.

I am changing out the pine nuts for macadamia nuts as I have a friend with an abundance of them, and they are a great alternative.

Planting and things to remember

April is a good time to plant miner's lettuce.

Now is the time to plant your miner’s lettuce, which I have mentioned in a previous article.

This is one of the best salad greens to have over winter.

If your kale, silver beet or chard plants are looking a bit tired, chop off the tops, leaving a 15-20cm stump.

Give them a good feed at the base, and before long, you will have lovely, sweet little leaves perfect for a salad or steaming.

You always need to be careful what you plant after your tomato crop.

Some of the best vegetables to plant are leafy greens such as spinach and silver beet or brassica crops including broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower.

Chillis and capsicums: it’s time to get these harvested if ready and put into the freezer.

You will thank yourself when you add them to casseroles and Asian dishes over winter.

Plant beetroot, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower, celery, kale, lettuce, radishes, rocket, spinach, silver beet, spring onions, coriander, parsley, oregano, rosemary, sage, and thyme.

Remember to get your plot ready to plant your garlic.

It is said to plant in June and harvest in December, but I like to plant early and try to avoid the dreaded rust.

If you still have yams in the ground, remember they fatten up and get sweeter after the first frosts, so leave them to it.

Remember to tidy up your herb patch; you may need to trim back a few or even replace with some fresh seedlings.

My leeks are coming along nicely, and I have an abundance of spring onions.

It won’t be long before I get out my slow cooker and start using some of my harvested vegetables in a few hearty slow-cooked winter stews with some lovely crunchy homemade bread.

Roll on, winter!