April in the garden is a very busy time. We have most of the sowing done. We’ve the cabbage and cauliflower transplanting and early onion sets, summer cabbage, late potatoes and broccoli are all planted out too.

We still have plenty to do as the second sowing of peas will go in this week. We will also be sowing seeds of savoy cabbage, summer lettuce and spring cabbage for 2020. These will stay in the ground all year long and won’t be used until next April.

The name of a good cauliflower seed is ‘April Armada’. We are using it now and it’s a lovely cauliflower full of vitamin C. All these seeds need to be sown before the end of April.

The soil is nicely dry for working and everything is thriving with lots of blossoms on our fruit trees. However, I’m seeing very few little bees. They are crucial for our eco-system and people are becoming more aware of their importance, which is marvellous. We are now more conscious of the fragility of our planet and bees are an integral part of keeping things right.

At times it does not feel as if there is any difference between the weather today and when I was a child, but I suppose that is matter of opinion. When I was a child, we also got lots of rain and snow along with hot summers and cold winters. It was difficult farming back then as there was a different way of feeding livestock. We depended on a big pit of mangels and turnips and plenty of hay. There was no silage, so we had to make sure we sowed enough to get through the winter.

When I was young, I remember my father calling me to the door to see a little plane go over. I would run to the gate to see a car going by on our little road. You’d be lucky to see one pass in a week whereas today it can be nearly impossible to get out on the road from the same farm with the volume of traffic. Scientists have pinpointed livestock farming as a major contributor to climate change. I feel the Governments of the world should be examining fossil fuel use in energy production and factories as an even bigger cause. CL

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