How to start a kitchen garden: what to do in April | House & Garden

This is one of the busiest months in the vegetable garden with a flurry of sowing. I tend to sow most things in seed trays or modules initially, but the soil should be warm enough now to direct-sow most hardy vegetable varieties, including beetroot, chard, carrots and salad crops, straight into the ground. If doing this, use a traditional garden line to create drills and follow the spacing guidelines on each seed packet. Tender crops can also be sown under cover, in modular seed trays (tomatoes, sweet peppers and chillies) or 6-7cm pots (courgettes and squash). Pot these on as they get larger, or plant outside once the weather is warmer towards the end of May.

By Clare Foster

I always grow sweet peas in the vegetable garden. If I have been organised and sown them in autumn, they will be ready to plant out his month. I love making rustic supports for them from pliable, freshly coppiced hazel: it is not difficult and there are video tutorials on YouTube. You can also use hazel to make supports for climbing beans, which can be planted out in May. The other main task for this month is to keep on top of weeds. As the temperature rises, these will multiply, and the easiest method of weeding is to hoe regularly before they get too big. The range of hoes can be bewildering: if you have recently started your patch and are still dealing with perennial weeds, a heavy-duty Dutch hoe is what you need. For precision weeding in smaller spaces, choose a sharp-bladed weed slice with a triangular or arrow-shaped blade, or a sideways-style swoe hoe. For raised beds and troughs, a small hand hoe is useful.