April Blog – What to do in the garden

Our Peat-Free Expert, Kate the Garden Guru shares top tips for gardening

April is a busy and exciting month in the UK garden! Spring is in full swing, plants are bursting into growth, and there’s plenty to do.

Peat-Free Party: The Sustainable Way to Grow This April

Spring is officially here, and that often means one thing for gardeners—it’s planting time! But this year, why not add a fresh, sustainable twist to your gardening routine by hosting a Peat-Free Potting Party? Whether you’re working solo in your greenhouse, gathering with fellow garden enthusiasts, or even sharing your efforts on social media, going peat-free is a fun, eco-friendly way to support biodiversity while growing strong, healthy plants.

Why Peat-Free?

Peat compost has long been used in gardening, but its environmental cost is high. Peatlands are vital carbon sinks, home to unique wildlife, and take thousands of years to form. By choosing peat-free compost, you help preserve these precious habitats, reduce carbon emissions, and promote sustainable gardening.

Setting Up Your Peat-Free Potting Party

1. Choose Your Peat-Free Compost Wisely

Peat free has had a bit of a bad reputation, mainly due to some cheap, poor-quality bags being available, but there are plenty of fantastic peat-free options out there, from reputable brands such as Durstons, that combine different textures, materials and nutrients and will provide perfect peat free composts for all your plant’s needs.

Some of the ingredients you will find in peat free composts include:

• Composted bark and wood fibre blends – Ideal for structure and drainage.
• Coir-based compost – Lightweight and great for water retention.
• Green waste compost – Nutrient-rich

2. Gather Your Supplies

As well as your chosen seeds and peat free compost, make sure you have:

✔️ Biodegradable pots or reusable containers
✔️ A scoop or trowel
✔️ Gloves
✔️ Labels for seedlings
✔️ Watering can with a fine rose for gentle watering

3. Get Sowing!

April is the perfect time to sow a variety of seeds, indoors and out. Some easy and reliable choices include:

🌱 Hardy annuals – Calendula, cornflowers, and nigella for pollinators

🥕 Vegetables – Beetroot, radish and salad leaves for a tasty summer harvest

🌿 Herbs – Basil, coriander, and parsley for fresh kitchen flavours

Fill your pots with a seed and cutting, peat-free compost, sow your seeds according to the pack instructions and  lightly cover them with more compost, and water gently. Place them in a warm, bright spot to encourage germination, a warm windowsill is ideal but keep out of direct sunlight and remember to turn them regularly.

Don’t forget to label them!

 4. Make It Social

Try: 📸 Posting progress pictures with #PeatFree
🎥 Creating a time-lapse video of seedlings sprouting
💬 Hosting a mini seed swap with friends or local gardeners

5. Care for Your Seedlings 🌱

Keep an eye on moisture levels—peat-free compost can seem to dry out faster, so regular but careful watering is key. Always check  just below the surface of the compost as it may still be moist and if you overwater new seedlings, you risk them rotting.

As your plants grow, pot them on using multi-purpose peat-free compost to provide more nutrients for healthy growth.

Switching to peat-free is one of the easiest and most impactful ways to make your gardening greener, so, grab your seeds, ditch the peat, and get growing—sustainably!

No-Dig Revolution 🌱

Create new beds for growing veg by layering compost straight onto the soil—no digging needed! This modern gardening hack builds soil health, encourages worms, and locks in moisture. Use a peat-free soil improver, bark chip or well-rotted manure and let nature do the work. If weeds are an issue, then you can lay cardboard down first, make sure you wet it and remove any tape, and then add the compost in a thick layer over the top. This will block out light to the weeds, stopping them germinating but also means you can plant out straight away. If perennial, persistent weeds are a problem, I would recommend removing them first and then adding the cardboard.

Wildlife-Friendly 🦔🐝

We all know our pollinators are in decline, so create a buzzing haven by planting pollinator-friendly flowers now like foxgloves, borage, and single-flowered dahlias. Not only will these attract insects such as bees and lacewings, but they will also look beautiful.

• Buy 9-inch pots of foxgloves from the garden centre to plant out directly into a semi-shady bed or border for flowering this year.
• Sow borage seeds into small modules indoors until the soil has warmed up and no frosts are forecast.(Borage can become invasive so be careful where you sow them)
• Buy single dahlias such as the Bishop’s series and pot up the tuber into a large pot filled with peat free compost, water once, then leave somewhere dry and warm until ready to plant out.

Use a gardening app to track which plants attract the most bees!

Veg Gardening in a Small Space🌆

Tiny patio garden? No problem!

You can transform a small space with vertical planters, unusual containers and peat-free compost. If you have a balcony, you can line up a row of peat free grow bags such as https://durstongardenproducts.co.uk/products/peat-free-range/growing-bags-planters  

This time of year, decide what you want to grow, space is of a premium, so you have to be strict. Choose veg that are expensive to buy, grow well in a pot and that you like to eat!

Salad leaves work really well and quickly in a small space but can be super expensive to buy in the supermarket. Grow leaves like Rocket, baby spinach, mizuna and mustard for a spicy kick. You can either start them in module trays indoors now or sow them direct into a pot full of peat free, seed and cutting compost but with some protection in case of a late cold snap.

Look for veg that grow well in pots or go for compact varieties. Chantenay carrots are short and stubby so are well suited to container growing and they are extremely sweet.

Make the most of walls and go vertical. Climbing beans, courgettes, cucumbers, and squash can be trained to grow up, just make sure you use the largest pot you have and always start these seeds off indoors now, ready for transplanting out when all risks of frost have passed.

Always put your climbing structures in place before you plant the veg out though so get your wires, trellis or batons in place now.

Container stars

Earlier spring bulbs such as daffodils, iris and crocus have started to fade now and it’s the turn of the divas!

Tulips come in show-stopper colours and really pack a punch in the garden, but if you’ve grown them from bulbs in pots since the late autumn, then by now they will be running out of nutrients and risk dehydration. To give them that extra boost, make sure you:

• Water them regularly – it’s been a really dry winter and early spring so make sure you water all your containers really well.
• Feed them – ideally use a liquid feed as you water.
• Mulch them – during the winter months, some composts can start to slump, so top up your containers with some fresh peat free bulb fibre compost.
•  

Regenerative Lawn Love 💚

You may have heard of ‘No Mow May’, but why not permanently turn a patch of your lawn into a mini wildflower meadow?

• Ideally choose a patch of lawn that is in full sun, a bit patchy and that hasn’t been feed or treated with any chemicals.
• start now by mowing short and then scarifying vigorously or removing as much as the turf that you want, ready for sowing wildflower seed or adding plug plants in May.
• Look for plugs of Yellow Rattle, this is a parasitic plant which will feed off grass and stop it from growing back each year.
• By choosing a permanent patch, you will have a permanent home for wildflowers and wildlife rather than just for one month a year.
•  

Pest Control

Warmer weather often means that slugs, aphids, and other pests are waking up? Skip the chemicals and go eco-friendly:

• Use beer traps, copper tape or barriers such as lava rock or grit.
• Try companion planting, nasturtiums attract aphids away from your veg and calendulas attract predatory insects that will feed on aphids. Sow them directly outside now or inside in peat free seed compost, ready to plant out in late May.
• Be vigilant and keep inspecting any soft growth as it appears because aphids, slugs and snails are particularly fond of these succulent shoots.
• Sort out any of last years pots and trays that are piled up in a corner as this is where slugs and snails love to hide.