No Dig April 10th 2025 - Sowing Special

Pre full moon, and no dig close spacing

Author

Charles Dowding
April 10, 2025

Full spring

Rudi radish sown 6th March (near the cat) is almost ready, had fleece over. Transplants in the middle are now large and ready.

Since late winter, we have mostly been sowing plants that are hardy to frost and tolerate the cold nights of spring.

Now we have the opportunity to sow seeds of some (not all) vegetables which thrive in summer warmth. I'm sending you this because it's a fantastic sowing time, just before Sunday’s full moon.

My New Energies book has details about that.

Cucumbers

These plants, thrive in warmth and are fast growing. They struggle if set to grow in cool and dark conditions, and yet much advice is to sow them even in late February 😮. This gains nothing and causes difficulty looking after them.

They need warmth in the early stage especially - germinate in your house, then grow on a heat mat under cover outside. They are for planting in a polytunnel or greenhouse, after your last frost date.

  • Cordon cucumbers are to grow vertically under cover, say up a string in a polytunnel. Sow them now. Or later in cold climates, up to mid-May.

  • Here I sow ridge cucumbers, for cropping on the ground outside, in the first half of May.

Outdoor lettuce 9th April with fleece over, 16 days planted, sown 20th February and the mulch is mushroom compost

More warmth lovers to sow now or soon

Courgettes / zucchini, other squash for summer and winter, and corn are possible. However, if your last frost date is still a month away, there is no rush and 20th to 25th April is a good date here, because the average last frost is mid-May.

Plus I recommend you wait until May before sowing summer beans. They grow quickly when it's warmer, but are often slug-eaten if it's too cool.

Tomatoes in my greenhouse 9th April, recently potted on from CD trays, I sowed them 30 days earlier on 10th March

Other sowings now, under cover mostly

Sow leeks 4–5 seeds per cell in module trays. And chard with 1-2 seeds per cell.

Sow celery, cabbage, calabrese, cauliflower, beetroot, basil. And annual flowers such as dwarf French marigolds, sunflowers, zinnias and nasturtiums.

Be careful not to overwater your seedlings, unless you have bottom heat. Best not to water them when there is very little sunshine forecast.

Sow outside

Dwarf French marigolds start nicely in CD trays. If the weather is warm enough, you can transplant them from these, but usually in April I'm putting them into 7 cm pots. These are to go between tomatoes in the polytunnel.

A lot is possible, especially potatoes. Usually they are chitted with sprouts, but if they are not, you can still plant them. With no dig I use a hand-trowel and make a slit deep enough that they can go in with 5 cm/2 inches soil or compost on top of them.

Sow broad beans, peas for pods and shoots, lettuce, salad onions, beetroot.

Leeks and chard can be sown in lines outside, in soil with not too many weed seeds.

No dig joy

Sowings of mid-February, transplanted 18 days earlier.

No dig makes it so easy to space closely, with mixed plantings as above.

We made that bed in May 2015, and planted it straight away. There were many wonderful harvests through that first summer and autumn. With very little weeding, and good moisture retention.

I have cropped this bed in the same way every year, with mixtures of different vegetables planted all through the seasons. Fertility comes from one application every winter of about 60 L compost. No fertilisers, no slug pellets.

Check out my free email course about starting no dig. You will receive five emails on subsequent days. They highlight how to avoid common mistakes.

The main one is starting too big! Create just one bed as above, and pack in the plantings.

See you around

I’m in Denmark this weekend, then the Netherlands in May, followed by conferences in Anchorage (image below), and Juneau Alaska.

My video has details in the description. Find further information on my website using the tab below.