Salad days will soon be upon us once more and there is no time like the present to start growing your own, preferably, organic/chemical-free, ingredients in your garden or in pots/containers on rooftops, balconies and verandas.

Salad — and other fruit and vegetable crops — can be glorious to behold, but flowers will always hold sway in most people’s gardens. This month it is time to sow and grow a wide variety of beautiful blooms to brighten up your days, and the lives of all who are blessed to have the opportunity to share in the natural beauty you have so lovingly tended.

Seed sowing guide for April

The flower garden: Bring a huge helping of joy to endure summer months by sowing a multitude of easy-to-grow flowers which, when in bloom, are sure to bring smiles to the faces of all who have the pleasure of seeing them. Stately sunflowers are a summer winner, especially so when planned en masse and in a mixture of gorgeous colours, including: the well-known golden kind, in shades of apricot, peach and cream, in lemon and moon-glow white, in deepest mahogany, irresistible chocolate and plush crimson. Sunflowers can be single or in double form, and range in height from just 18-24 inches up to a towering 12 feet and more. Some send single stems racing for the sky and others have a bushy habit, smothering themselves with blooms over a surprising length of time. Select sunflower varieties suitable for your location and don’t forget to grow some dwarf varieties in pots. Heat-loving Californian poppies, for flower beds and borders, pots and other assorted containers are another long-lasting bed that are so simple to grow from seed as is the almost year-round favourite cosmos, the flowers often resembling a ballerina’s tutu as she leaps and spins. Then there are summer hardy zinnias in a whole host of hot colours, in soft pastel shades and even in an interesting lime green as well. Rather interesting gomphrena, cockscomb amaranthus, celosia, edible amaranthus with purple leaves or green leaves and drooping heads of usually scarlet flowers, which are just as at home in the flower garden as in the vegetable one, and deserve to be far more widely grown. Gaillardia, rudbeckia, salpigloss, nicotiana, matricaria, petunias, French and African marigolds, tagetes, coreopsis, tithonia, mesembryanthemums and flax (alsi) will gladden your summer heart and embrace your soul.

The vegetable garden: It’s time to sow salad ingredients galore if you wish to gorge on healthy, cooling, meals this summer. Lettuce, grown in light shade so that it copes well with high temperatures, is the base of many salads but, let’s face it, it can get a bit boring so sow a range of other salad greens as well. These can include: endive, chicory, radicchio, Swiss chard/leaf beet, spinach, Japanese and Chinese mixed salad leaves, and Mesclun salad mixes too.

Time to grow organic/chemical-free, salad ingredients in your garden

Tomatoes, in every shape, colour and form are, it goes without saying, a must, as are sweet capsicums, crunchy cucumbers, tangy white mooli and crisp French radish. Then there are aubergines, cayenne peppers, bitter gourd/karela, okra green onions, climbing beans and bush beans of many different types, and with a variety of different fast-growing, loose or open-hearted cabbage are ideal in summer salads or for making coleslaw and a few summer cauliflowers will not go amiss. A block or two of sweet corn for those homemade bhutas we love so much, a few courgettes/zucchini, marrows, pumpkins and other kinds of summer squash, a sizeable patch of fenugreek, a plot of sweet potatoes and you should be veggie rich indeed.

Summer fruits: Chinese gooseberries, melons and watermelons should perform well from seed sown now and don’t forget to propagate pineapple tops for a juicy reward in two to three years’ time.

The herb garden: Peppery flavoured nasturtium flowers and leaves are a slightly spicy salad addition and these lovely plants, be they of the bush, climbing or trailing variety, provide lots to get your teeth into for weeks on end. Plus, their glorious flowers — scarlet, yellow, orange, cream, to name but a few, light up your life with a vibrancy matched by few other garden plants. Chillies are an herby must, as is coriander. Blue and white flowered borage has many uses, basil, chives and garlic chives are essential, rocket (arugula), calendulas, aniseed, summer savoury, lemon grass, dill, feverfew, chervil, turmeric and ginger, and you will have summer herbs and spices galore.

Herb of the month: Ocimum basilicum (basil) is a herb not to be ignored. This annual, biannual and occasionally perennial plant is simple to grow and extremely productive. Sow seeds, this month, just beneath the surface of well-draining, humus-rich, preferably organic, compost/sweet earth, keep moist but not wet and germination should be rapid. Transplant seedling, at the four to five leaves stage either one per 10-inch clay pot or eight to 12 inches apart (depending on variety) in a prepared garden bed. Pinch out the central growing point when plants are about six inches tall to encourage bushiness. Harvest fresh leaves as required, make into pesto or dry leaves for long-term storage and use. There are literally dozens of different basils to choose from with sweet basil, lime basil, lemon basil, purple basil and extra strong Greek basil being amongst the most popular ones for both culinary and medicinal use.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened.

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 5th, 2020