From Sonairte
Easter 2009 is late and follows a warmer than usual and drier than usual spring. With any luck the late potatoes, for harvesting at the end of summer or beginning of autumn, will go into the ground this weekend - Good Friday is the traditional planting date for them. By the time they come up the last of the frost should be gone so they won't need the protection that the early spuds did.
By now all the seeds for the plants that will be grown indoors over the summer should be sown - tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and climbing beans. And the soil is warm and dry enough to sow many of the outdoor summer crops like lettuce, peas, broad beans, summer cabbage, white turnips, spinach, carrots, broccoli and chard.
If you have indoor growing space you can sow the seeds of courgettes, french and runner beans, sweet corn and other slightly tender crops. They shouldn't be planted out until the second week of May though, just in case they get caught by a late frost. And you can still get a good crop if you sow them out of doors in May.
What is harder to remember is that most of the autumn and winter crops need to be sown now as well. This includes parsnips, winter cabbages - red, white and green, kale, purple sprouting broccoli, swedes, cauliflowers and leeks.
And don't forget to sow lots of colourful annual flowers now - you can mix them in with the vegetables and they will attract bees and beneficial insects to your garden and confuse the ones that want to share your veggies with you when you don't want to share. And the vegetable garden is a good place to grow a few extra flowers to cut for the house as well.
If you planted bulbs in the autumn the Easter garden can be full of colour, with tulips and hyacinths at their very best, while the fruit garden will be full of plum and pear blossom
