Trust gardeners’ tips for growing your own veg

With April–May the time of year when the Trust’s gardeners do much of their sowing, now is exactly the right time to put their advice into action.

1. Success relies on good soil preparation and condition.

Your site should ideally be in a sunny and weed-free (especially perennial weeds) location.
Add a generous layer of good quality peat-free garden compost or leaf mould in autumn/early winter and leave to rot down into the ground over the winter until you are ready to sow or plant in the spring. Rake the soil level and then ‘tread over’ with your feet to leave a firm (but by no means compact) surface. Rake level with a landscaping rake (removing any debris) to create a fine, firm but fluffy surface (called a ‘fine tilth’).
Alternatively, you can opt for raised beds using the same basic principles, or dig or fork peat-free compost into the ground in late winter/spring.

2. Get to work in the greenhouse.

If you have the luxury of a greenhouse – even one of the mini or portable greenhouses available at garden centres – many vegetables, such as brassicas, salad crops and peas, can be sown in March and April to give you a head start.
At the start of May, more tender crops, such as courgettes, pumpkins and runner and French beans, can be sown indoors.

3. Watch out for late frosts – these can keep the soil too cold for planting out until May.

Once the danger of frost has passed, you can get on with sowing vegetables directly outside. Set up a string line if you want neat, regimented rows and use the tip of a trowel to make a shallow drill before sowing, lightly covering over and labelling. If the soil is very dry, water the drill before sowing.
When planting carrot seed, sow as thinly as possible to avoid the need to thin out the seedlings, as this releases the scent that attracts carrot root fly.

4. Plant any strongly scented plants along with your vegetables, such as marigolds or onions, as this will confuse the pests.

This is a good example of ‘companion planting’, a very popular method of helping control garden pests organically, by encouraging beneficial insects such as ladybirds and lacewings that eat aphids. At Castle Fraser, one of the gardening team’s favourite companion plants for vegetables are French marigolds (Tagetes patula), which are known to deter root-eating pests and keep weeds at bay. They look amazing too.

5. Plant a variety of annual and perennial flowers with your vegetables to encourage pollinating insects into your garden.

A favourite at Fyvie is Nepeta (catmint), which is especially good at attracting bees and hoverflies.

6. Reduce plastic use ... and also waste.

At Castle Fraser, the gardeners use wooden seed boxes to avoid buying any new plastic, but any shallow tray will do for planting as long as there is drainage at the bottom. You could use anything from a fruit punnet to yoghurt pots. When planting your seeds, only grow a small number of seeds at a time so as not to have a glut later in the year or be forced to throw seedlings away. The Trust’s gardeners often divide a tray into sections or even sow just a line.

7. Be creative about repurposing.

After a birch tree had to be taken out at Castle Fraser, the team have found numerous ways to make use of it, from using the twiggy tops to be woven into the bases for Christmas wreathes to deploying longer stems as supports for peas and beans. The team also use fuchsia stems, after they are cut back in spring, to make pea and mange-tout supports.

Ruth Wardle, the Trust’s Head Gardener at Castle Fraser, said: ‘As a gardener, I get great satisfaction from providing a place of inspiration, education and peace for all those who visit our beautiful garden at Castle Fraser. I am keen to share those skills with people of all ages, encouraging them to garden for their own health and wellbeing. I’m privileged to do this in my own career and am very grateful to all our charity’s members and supporters whose generosity makes it possible to care for, nurture and share our gardens, supporting our vision of nature, beauty and heritage for everyone.’

Gordon Thomson, the Trust’s Head Gardener at Fyvie Castle, added: ‘The heritage and stories of remarkable gardens such as Fyvie Castle date back centuries, but our charity’s ambition is to make them accessible to many more people and keep them relevant, valued and resilient for the 21st century and beyond. Sharing our gardening expertise and enthusiasm with home gardeners is one way we can do that.

‘I hope that, in my role as a professional gardener, I can inspire others to benefit from connecting with plants and nature – not just by enjoying the garden at Fyvie and the other gardens the Trust cares for, but also by taking our gardening tips home with them.’