1. Use the Instant Planter to grow a late crop of your favourite salad vegetables. It has twice the depth of compost of standard growing bags, so it’s perfect for plants with deep roots. The rich layer of finely balanced compost contains everything your plants need to thrive. It includes a wetting agent to make watering easier and a water storing gel, which makes the water you use go much further and also helps retain moisture in the compost to support your plants during hot and dry weather. Choose some quick maturing mixed salad leaves from the wide selection from Unwins Seeds. Can you suggest any varieties?
2. Sow spring cabbages such as Pixie or Greensleeves into pots and modules ready for planting out in September and October.
3. Keep the salad season going as long as possible and continue to sow lettuce, salad onions and even radishes. Look out for reliable winter lettuces that can be grown under cloches into the winter such as Winter Density.
4. Continue to harvest salad crops as and when needed. Where possible remove alternate plants to leave plenty of room for the remaining plants to develop.
5. Feed developing plants using an appropriate, quality fertiliser. Choose Nutri Fruit and Vegetable Feed for great results.
6. Remember to keep protecting salad plants from slugs and snails. Use Eraza for fast effective control or a barrier of Slug Blocker to prevent these pests from reaching your vulnerable plants.
7. Keep the vegetable patch well weeded so that the weeds do not compete with your plants for vital moisture and nutrients.
8. Keep a watch out for caterpillar eggs on your cabbage plants. Look out for clusters of orange yellow eggs beneath the leaves. Let these hatch first to ensure that they are not ladybird larvae, a very beneficial insect for gardeners. Caterpillars will hatch as tiny wriggling strands, which can be removed by hand.
9. Earth up around Brussels Sprouts and firm in around the stems to give these plants better resistance to heavy wind and rain.
10. Bend the outer leaves over the top of developing cauliflowers to keep them white and clean.

If you are new to growing your own food then try just a handful of crops this year, once you are hooked there’ll be no stopping you. Check out the new Gro-sure seed range available from Unwins.

Runner beans and French beans can be sown in a frost-free greenhouse from April. This gives them just enough time to grow into plants large enough to handle and be hardened off by the time the last frost has passed. That makes them ready to plant out in mid to late June.

In a cool greenhouse or on the windowsill you can sow outdoor tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, courgettes and half-hardy annuals.

Outdoors, if the soil is crumbly and not stodgy, sow leeks, carrots and parsnip. Make a shallow trench in the soil about 1in (2.5cm) deep, line the base with Multi-Purpose Compost with added John Innes, water gently and then sprinkle the seed thinly on top. Cover over with more compost.

Beetroot, turnip, carrots and radish can be sown in shallow drills lined with compost, without extra protection. However if you are in an exposed position, or the weather is particularly harsh, a covering of fleece or a cloche will help speed germination.

Plant onion sets out into the garden. Add a dressing of Growmore Garden Fertiliser to the soil before planting. These tiny onion bulbs should be pushed gently into the soil with their tips just showing. Plant them 10-15cm apart.

Continue to plant chitted First Early, Second Early potato tubers 5-6in (12.5-15cm) deep and about 12in (30cm) apart. Cover over with fleece to protect emerging shoots from frost. As shoots appear cover them over with more soil. This encourages more tubers to form underground.

Sow herb seeds such as sweet basil, parsley and chives. Grow them in small pots containing SureStart Seed & Cutting Compost.

Feed permanent crops such as herbs, artichokes, and asparagus with Growmore Garden Fertiliser.

Improve the soil now where you plan to grow plants that need plenty of water to mature their fruits. Marrows, courgettes, squash and pumpkins all fall into this category. Dig in plenty of Soil Conditioner or organic Vegetable Growing Compost where the plants are to grow. This will add vital nutrients to the soil and also improve its water holding capacity so that it stays moist for longer.

Protect young vegetable plants from slugs and snails. Employ your preferred method of control. Look out for Westland Eraza and Slug Blocker  effective ways to deal with slugs and snails.

Remember to keep vegetable beds weed free. Weeds not only compete for any available food and water, but they also provide shelter for a number of garden pests and diseases. Dig out any perennial weeds making sure to remove all the roots and hoe off any annual weed seedlings as they appear. Always hoe when the soil is slightly dry and on a sunny day so that the uprooted weeds seedlings will quickly wither. Persistent perennial weeds can be carefully treated with Westland Resolva. This weedkiller combines the speed of a contact weed killer with the deep down root killing activity of a systemic weedkiller. It works so quickly that you can actually see effects in 24 hours.

Over the next few months we’ll be running a grow with us feature in our newsletter. We’ve selected some great vegetable and flower varieties from our new Gro-sure range and month by month we’ll be showing you how to sow the seeds, prick out, pot on, plant them out and finally we’ll be enjoying the fruits of our labour, when the summer gets here! Sign up to receive the newsletter here.

In the veg department we have been busy sowing Lettuce Sansula, Pepper Diablo and Ringo and Tomato Pannovy, all of which can be grown in pots on the patio and so are ideal for those of us with limited space. And for those with a veg patch or allotment to fill we will also be growing Cabbage Cilion.

For stunning containers and baskets we’ve selected Busy Lizzie Jambalaya, Lobelia Half Moon, Geranium Bulls Eye Cherry and Petunia Bravo Mix.

If you have space inside, in a greenhouse, porch or a bright windowsill you can start straight away and give your seeds a real head start.

Week 4

A few weeks have passed since we sowed our seed and we’ve had some fantastic results already. All of the seeds sown have germinated and we are now faced with trays full of little seedlings all growing away well.

In the next couple of weeks we’ll have to start pricking out and potting on our little seedlings (those that we didn’t plant in module trays) but in the meantime we need to make sure we continue to give them the best environment possible in which to grow and strengthen;

1. If your seedlings are growing on a windowsill remember to turn the trays or pots regularly as seedlings will also grow towards the light. Regular turning will ensure your seedlings grow nice, straight stems. It’s important also not to let the temperature drop too much at night otherwise they may have problems with a cold shock.

2. Keep the compost nice and moist at all times. Don’t allow it to dry out at this tender stage in your plants development.

3. Ensure there is good airflow between your seedlings and that the compost is not too wet. Cramped seedlings and wet compost can quickly lead to ‘damping off’, a fungal disease that can quickly wipe out whole sowings. Treatments are available to deal with ‘damping off’ but as with many diseases prevention is the key (some of the Gro-sure varieties are coated with a fungicide to help with this).

Look out for our next issue, in early April, when we’ll be pricking out and potting on our seedlings.

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Over the next few months we’ll be running a grow with us feature in our newsletter. We’ve selected some great vegetable and flower varieties from our new Gro-sure range and month by month we’ll be showing you how to sow the seeds, prick out, pot on, plant them out and finally we’ll be enjoying the fruits of our labour, when the summer gets here! Sign up to receive the newsletter here.

In the veg department we have been busy sowing Lettuce Sansula, Pepper Diablo and Ringo and Tomato Pannovy, all of which can be grown in pots on the patio and so are ideal for those of us with limited space. And for those with a veg patch or allotment to fill we will also be growing Cabbage Cilion.

For stunning containers and baskets we’ve selected Busy Lizzie Jambalaya, Lobelia Half Moon, Geranium Bulls Eye Cherry and Petunia Bravo Mix.

If you have space inside, in a greenhouse, porch or a bright windowsill you can start straight away and give your seeds a real head start.

Week 1 – 3
Having chosen our varieties we are ready to start sowing;

We are sowing our seeds into cell trays. Fill the trays with a good seed sowing compost such as John Innes Seed Sowing Compost and firm down gently.

Open the pack and tip a few seeds into the palm of your hand. Sow seeds individually. For ease of sowing any difficult to handle seeds in the Gro-sure range have been coated to make them easier to sow.

Cover your seeds with a light layer of compost and water gently using tepid water.

Don’t forget to label tray of seeds so you know which is which – it can be very easy to mix up small seedlings!

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Ladybirds and Lacewings love to munch on aphids so encouraging their numbers will go a long way to limiting the damage wreaked by the dreaded pests.  Don’t be too hasty to tidy away hollow stems and other branches.  Provided these are not diseased they make a fantastic home for overwintering insects and ensure they are already in your garden for the onset of Spring.

Sowing and growing wildflowers is a fantastic way of encouraging many beneficial insects and birds into the garden.  Growing a wide range of plants is a really good idea.  Not only does this cut down the risks of certain soil borne diseases getting a hold in the garden but it also encourages the broad range of insects and slugs that birds love to feed on.  Where possible leave seed heads on flowers such as Echinacea, Sunflowers and Teasel during the winter months as these will provide food for birds, encouraging them to visit your garden.

If you are lucky enough to have hedgehogs in your garden provide them with a safe and secure place for hibernation during the winter months.  Hedgehogs love slugs and will do a fantastic job of keeping down numbers in your garden.  Always check unlit bonfires before lighting as these are often irresistible to hedgehogs when they are looking for a home.  Never feed hedgehogs with bread and milk, this can be harmful to them.  Instead give dog or cat meat.

There are a great many plants that will attract bees and butterflies into the garden, below is a few ideas to get you started;

• Aquilegia
• Borage
• Buddleja
• Echinacea
• Eryngium
• Geranium (cranesbill)
• Honesty (Lunaria)
• Lavender
• Penstemon
• Phlox
• Scabious
• Sedum
• Tagetes

It’s also great for the environment with a tiny carbon foot print, the health benefits of growing organically and the reassurance of knowing exactly what’s happened to your produce before it hits your plate.

Get the kids involved. No promises, but they may even eat sprouts if they’ve grow them!

Choose produce you love to eat.  Grow traditional favourites as well as new varieties you’ve never tried before.

One solution and great advice is to sow quicker growing crops such as radish, early peas, spinach and dwarf lettuce between rows of slower growing veg such as parsnips and Brussels sprouts.

This is know as “intercropping” and will help to make the most of your space and increase productivity in your vegetable garden.

Another way to get a succession of crops is to choose varieties that mature at different times. Potatoes for example, are classified into First Earlies, Second Earlies and Main Crop, and within these groups some varieties produce potatoes sooner than others. Alternatively purchase pre-mixed packs of seeds that offer crops with differing harvest times.

The same principle is true of fruit. You can choose different varieties of strawberries to enable you to harvest fruit from early summer through to autumn. This applies to apples, raspberries and many other fruit.

There are many other benefits to crop rotation too, legumes for example fix nitrogen in the soil whilst they grow and this is then available for the next crop. It is a good idea to follow these crops with leafy brassicas or potatoes which like a high level of nitrogen.

Potatoes also tend to smoother out weeds so they are unable to grow. Follow these with hard to weed veg such as onions.

Crop rotation does require organisation though and you need to be plan at least for the following 3 seasons. For the best results the further ahead you can plan the better.