Elsewhere in the vegetable garden: April is perfect for getting a sweet potato patch up and running and do remember that you don’t have to wait for tubers to develop before you get a meal as the leaves, cooked like spinach, are delicious too. Sow more tomato seeds along with cucumbers, aubergines, capsicums, crunchy salad radish, giant-sized mooli, ladies fingers, karela, beans both bush and climbing, green onions and fenugreek. In partial shade you can sow lettuce, leaf beet/Swiss chard and an assortment of Chinese and Japanese salad leaves with some summer/autumn maturing cauliflowers, loose leaf summer cabbage and collard greens too. Along with the pumpkins detailed above, April is last call for sowing marrows, zucchini/courgettes, tindas, loki and other members of the squash/Cucurbita family of plants.

In the herb garden: A wide selection of basils, coriander, chillies, borage, garlic chives, chives, nasturtiums, chervil, rocket/arugula, feverfew, summer savoury, dill, aniseed, calendulas, lemon grass, ginger and why not give turmeric a go as well.

On the fruit front: Sweet melons, water melons, pineapples and Chinese gooseberries can be planted now.

In the flower department: Celosia, Gompherena, Nicotiana, Matricaria, Amaranthus, Cosmos, sunflowers, Mesembryanthemums, Portulaca, Zinnias, Tithonia, Californian poppies, Rudbekia, Gaillardia, Coreopsis, Flax (alsi in Urdu), Tagetes, French marigolds and Petunias.

Bulb/corms: Calocasias, Alocasias, Caladiums and Amaryllis can all be potted up for growing on now.

Flower of the month: Californian poppy (Eschscholzia) is an easily grown, sun-loving annual which, in coastal regions and the plains, can be sown at almost any time of the year. It thrives in poor, well-drained soil and self-seeds when happy.

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. Commercial enquiries will be ignored.

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 1st, 2018