Excitement is growing

Spring comes just in time. As much as I love root vegetables, cabbage and winter squash, after a few months, I start craving something fresh, something green. Delicate vegetables that don’t even need to be cooked, just plucked from the ground and enjoyed. They are never as sweet and delicious as when they first emerged from the newly warmed earth. The first of the radishes will still have soil clinging to it by the time it finds my mouth, and the snap of green stems when harvesting asparagus echoes spring.

April has come in with a stunning mix of hot days and cold nights. Inside the tunnel, where the seedlings are shielded from the nighttime chill, growth has exploded. Overwintered greens like spinach and mustard leaves are flying out before they bolt by mid-April. Spinach needs picking every three days, and the kitchen is keeping pace. Chard has overwintered beautifully too, a reliable, vibrant harvest.

I’m making the most of this early warmth by squeezing in new plantings of fennel, spring onions, turnips, and radishes alongside the mature spinach and mustard that are on their last stretch. It’s a game of garden Tetris, ensuring that space is ready for the king of summer crops: tomatoes. Every planting decision is a strategic puzzle, but I love the challenge of fitting everything in just right.

Beyond the tunnel, in the main garden, overwintered spring cabbage reaches high with a surge of energy after months of dormancy…something we can all relate to. Meanwhile, the other beds are filling up one by one with varieties of salads, spinach, broccoli, turnips and onions. It has been dry, but that’s not a big issue - the thick mulch on our beds is doing its job, locking in moisture. When transplanting young seedlings, I always plant deep, so their root balls connect with the damp soil beneath the mulch. They get watered in well to give them the best start, and we cover new plantings with horticultural fleece to protect them from those crisp spring nights.

I don’t want to jinx it, but everything is running rather smoothly so far. And, most importantly, the dryness is keeping the slug population down - something every gardener will appreciate at this time of year.

One of my biggest priorities right now is sowing seed potatoes. My tried-and-tested method of growing them under black polythene is making its return. The beds are well-watered beforehand, and I’ve set up porous irrigation pipes beneath the plastic to ensure they get a steady supply of moisture if we hit a dry spell.

With our last frost date lingering around May 4th, April is prime time for sowing heat-loving crops from the cucurbit family like melons, squash, and cucumbers.  Melons are strictly for the polytunnel, of course. I'm also sowing basil and flowers like zinnias, sunflowers, and nasturtiums. If you haven’t started your tomatoes, aubergines, and chillies yet, you may have missed the boat for a decent cropping period.

March brought an exciting event to Homewood as we hosted the prestigious Trencherman’s Guide Awards dinner, a celebration of the finest hospitality in the Southwest. Each course was led by a guest chef, and I had the privilege of channelling my past life as a chef to create the canapés - drawing, as always, from the kitchen garden for inspiration. A seasonal favourite of mine is magnolia flowers. Every year, I gather crate-loads of buds from the towering tree on the lawn and pickle them in rice vinegar, which transforms them into something extraordinary - floral with a hint of ginger. For one of the canapés, we paired these delicate pickled petals with cured mackerel, wrapped in seaweed, and finished with freshly grated garden horseradish. A bite I was very happy with. The energy in the kitchen was electric, with stunning plates of food leaving the pass, and it was a thrill to be back in chef whites, surrounded by some of the Southwest’s best culinary talent. That said, as much as I love the rush of a busy kitchen, I was just as happy to step back into the garden the next morning,

Now in my fifth year of growing, everything feels more intuitive. I no longer need to check my phone for spacing or timelines before every task. I know how many trays of seedlings I need to fill a bed with a few extras to spare, and I have a sense of exactly when each crop will be ready to harvest. That said, you’ll still catch me standing motionless in the garden for extended periods, lost in thought, trying to figure out how to fit everything in.