After a few months of largely indoor activity, April should see the show growers getting active outside again.

The soil should be getting warm enough to start sowing roots, but both carrots and parsnips can be reluctant to germinate in the cold, so pre-warming the soil by covering with a cloche for a week or two can help.

Sow carrots thinly so that later thinning out of seedlings doesn’t attract carrot root fly. Sowing parsnips in stations rather than rows (3 per station, with only the strongest seedling left to mature) leaves the roots plenty of space to develop. There isn’t a specific class for parsnips, but they make an impressive addition to the “top tray” collection class. Serious show growers use containers for roots.  Controlling the growing medium means that there is less chance of stones causing distortion of the roots.  If Cookham residents still have their old recycling bins (the black and purple ones) these are a pretty good size to have a go at growing carrots in a contained environment.

Re-using the re-cycling tub

Warmer weather means more weeds, so keep weeding your onions, shallots and garlic, when young the alliums are easily out-competed by broader leaved weeds.

A weeded onion bed

As the weather warms up, your potatoes should start to show, but make sure that you keep them earthed up, as well as increasing the overall yield and preventing green potatoes, this will protect the emerging shoots from late frosts.

Earthing up potatoes (May 2011)

Over the past couple of years, there have been more entries in the fruit and vegetable classes than the flower ones, so don’t forget about the flowers. It is a good time to take Dahlia cuttings and propagate more of your best plants. Chrysanthemums can be planted out by the end of this month as well. With classes for annual and edible flowers, why not sow some of these too?

Can you beat these?