April antics include; easy seeds to sow now, spicy scent, feeding the birds responsibly, hard core chocolate, and fascinating friends.

Gardening tips for April

How to grow sweet peas in loo roll tubes

Growing sweet peas is one of the easiest jobs to succeed at if you’re a beginner gardener. They’re very undemanding and will reward you with glorious, billowing scented blooms for months. Cutting sweet pea flowers frequently will encourage more to develop, so you can fill your house with them and still have loads to give away to your friends and family.

Sweet pea seeds grow deep roots very quickly, which like to touch the edge of the pots they’re growing in, then spiral downwards.

If you sow them in an ordinary pot or improvise with old yoghurt pots or similar, they’ll run out of depth very quickly. And they’ll sulk. Loo roll inners give them more length to develop those roots.

1️⃣ So, once you’ve collected a few cardboard inners, prop them upright in a watertight seed tray and start filling them with compost.

The watertight seed tray bit is important if you’re sowing seeds indoors. Don’t be a complete numpty like me and mistakenly buy seed trays with holes in the bottom. If you really want, I’ll show you how I used my remarkable improvisation skills to stop water leaking out of the ones I bought 🙄

2️⃣ Now you’ve filled them to the top with compost, using a pencil or your finger, poke a dip in each tube of compost about 1cm deep and pop one seed in each dip.

Gardeners can get very heated about whether you should soak your sweet pea seeds before sowing. I’ve never bothered before. But this year’s seed packets suggest I do, so I might.

Or maybe I’ll forget—thanks, ADHD.

3️⃣ Cover each seed with compost, then water them all lightly.

4️⃣ Put them in a warm place—ideally 20C ish. Keep them damp but not wet. You don't want the seeds to rot.

And wait.  For roughly 10-28 days, depending on the temperature. Ideally make a note of the date you sowed them.

5️⃣ Once you can see the chunky shoots peeking above the soil, move them to a sunny spot in your house as they’ll need as much light as possible now.

6️⃣ Then plant them out, into a large pot or in the ground, once the last frosts are over. Bamboo canes help to support taller varieties, or you could lean them against a fence. Low growing patio varieties are great if you can't be bothered staking them.

Soon you’ll be cutting armfuls of the fabulously frothy and fragrant flowers.

Have you ever grown sweet peas before?

Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Votadini - Wales Perfumery

Scent story 

Feast day is here at last. Huge fire blazing in the hearth, mud floor worn smooth by dancing feet, and rough wooden tables groaning with food. Broad grins on everyone.

Goblets splashing spiced red wine. Loud bursts of laughter. Gleaming earthenware platters heaped with dates. 

The hall heats up, with ancient timbers sweating in the warmth. Elbows bump as whirling dancers spin. It’s been a good year.

Nature notes for April

Rather controversially, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has recently asked people to rethink how they feed garden birds. With the increase of a highly infectious disease that’s spreading quickly via bird feeders, the RSPB is suggesting we pause feeding birds during the summer months in the UK.

They’re also encouraging people to clean bird feeders and bird baths at least once a week, and to move them around the garden to prevent disease build up.

Also mentioned is helping birds to find their own food by planting natural food sources in gardens. And I think it’s really important to emphasise you don’t need a big outdoor space to do this.

You can grow sunflowers (for seeds) in pots, thread ivy (for berries) through balcony railings and plant roses (for rosehips) in big containers. Birds will feasts on wee insects attracted to these plants too, so you’ll be feeding them through the seasons.

If you fancy a chat about making your garden more bird (and wildlife) friendly with carefully selected plants, feel free to get in touch.

Featured bean-to-bar chocolate: Menakao Madagacar 100% cocoa with cocoa nibs

Now, I’m not going to lie, eating 100% cocoa chocolate isn’t something I do every day. The dry astringency that comes with it isn’t what I’m looking for often. But every now and then, the richly savoury flavour profile coupled with scintillating sharp red fruit notes ticks all my sensory seeking boxes. Especially when - as in this bar - there are supremely scrunchy cocoa nibs too.

Easy wellbeing tip: meeting people in person

I feel very lucky to be able to work from home. But truly, there’s no substitute for getting together with like-minded folk and nerding out over a shared enthusiasm. And that’s exactly what I did during National Fragrance Week in March.

With events across London for a blissful week-long orgy of scent, it was hard to choose which things to go to. Except it wasn’t that difficult for me because I spent a LOT of time with my incredible pals who were at the Pop-Up Perfumery in Bloomsbury.

Where could YOU go to absorb (and emit) some beautiful creative energy among enthusiastic folk?

On the blog:

Why work with a perfume copywriter?

⭐ Writing this newsletter is one of my favourite parts of the month. And I’m always open to feedback about how it could be improved. I’d love to know your thoughts!

The perfume mentioned was very kindly gifted by the brand, and I paid for the chocolate myself.

All wibbly words and photos are by me, Rowan Ambrose ⭐