Spring Planting in the Vegetable Garden

The soil should be fine and crumbly to be suitable for seeds or young plants. Dig the ground with a spade or till the soil with a rotavater. This will break up the soil. Finish by raking, breaking up any small lumps and levelling the earth.

Early in the season, when the ground is still cold, warm it up first, either by covering the plot with a cloche or enviromesh for at least a week before planting out. You should keep the plastic or fleece off the ground to allow good air circulation.

You’ll get a good flush of weeds. Hoe them at this stage and you’ll have fewer weeds later.

Potatoes

Dig a trench for potatoes to a spade’s depth, and put the topsoil to one side. Put a layer of rough compost or manure in the trench and lay the tubers on top at the right spacing. [See below] It pays to place an irrigation line along the trench to give the thirsty young plants enough water. Rake the soil over the tubers and rake a little more soil from each side of the row on to the line of potatoes.

• See Growing Your Own Potatoes from Chitting to Harvesting

Onions

Plant onions and shallots in April. They are greedy feeders, so feed the soil with compost or fine, and well rotted manure, digging it in well. Very fine soil is needed. Mark out the planting line with twine. Make a shallow drill with a rake. Do this by holding the rake at 45¬∞, drag the rake along the line, letting it sink 1inch / 2cm into the soil. Water the drill and then plant the onion setts. Then completely cover them and gently tamp down the soil. By hiding the onion setts like this, birds won’t be able to pick them out of the ground.

Swiss chard, beetroot, Kohl rabbi, radishes, cut and come again lettuces, oriental leave and white turnips

These vegetables need to be sown directly. Again, draw out a drill as for onions, water it, and sow seed thinly. Then cover with the drier soil. This keeps the seed moist without encouraging evaporation and therefore less moisture for the seedling.

Peas

Make a drill 4in / 10cm wide. Sow peas 1in / 2cm apart within the drill. Water, and then cover the seed with fine topsoil. Gently firm the soil with a rake. Make a ‘wigwam’ with small twigs along each side of the drill. This will give the seedlings something to cling on to, and will stop birds pulling out the young peas.

• See Grow Old-fashioned Heritage Peas This Year

For successional harvesting, you can sow more peas once you see the first seedlings. This will take 2 weeks for peas.

Planting Distances for Vegetables.

If you’re planting in a raised bed, the distance between the rows is the same as between the plants in a row.

Plant – Distance in the row – Distance between rows

Early potatoes – 30cm / 1ft 90cm – 3ft

Lettuce – Depends on variety

Oriental leaves – sow thinly

2nd Early potatoes 40c, / 1ft 9in 90cm / 3ft

Peas 3 lines in a drill [above] 90cm / 3ft

Broad beans – 10cm / 4in 30cm – 1ft

Dwarf French beans – 15cm / 6in – 15cm / 6in

Runner and Fr beans – 15cm / 6in – 60cm / 2ft

Onions – 10cm / 4in 15cm – 6in

Shallots – 30cm / 1ft 30cm – 1ft

Garlic – 30cm / 1ft 30cm – 1ft

Leeks – 15cm / 6in 30cm – 1ft

Carrots, salsify – sow thinly

Parsnips – 20cm / 8in – 45cm / 18in

Beetroot, turnips – 5cm / 2in – 10cm / 4in

Khol rabi – 15cm / 6in – 30cm / 1ft

Celery, celeriac – 30cm / 1ft – 60cm / 2ft

Courgettes, zucchini – 1.2 m/ 4ft

Tomatoes, peppers – 60cm / 2ft

Squash – 60cm / 2ft

Cucumbers – 90cm / 3ft

Sweet corn – 45cm / 18in – 45cm / 18in

Most brassicas are 45cm / 18in apart, but cauliflowers are 60cm / 2ft.