April Gardening Calendar

The gardening calendar for April provides a list of recommended food growing tips and <sigh>gardening chores. If you haven’t started your organic gardening adventure yet, it is HIGH time!

April is a wonderful time for growing organic food. More people garden in April and May than any other time of the year. Winter is over, the hot months of July and August are not pounding you…. it is just a fabulous time to be outside. The date of last expected frost has come and gone (for most). Consult the growing zone maps to determine your garden’s date of expected last frost. Early in the month there is still time to plant the cool season vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, lettuces, greens and onions. (if you haven’t already!) Corn and beans can begin going in the ground toward the end of the month and you can start working on yummy green peppers, eggplant, heat loving squash and everyone’s favorite… tomatoes!

The desire to grow your own food seems to increase with every growing season that begins. And the beauty of it is whether you only have a small patio garden or an entire acre to plant, you can always grow organic food. Most food vegetables need at least six hours of sunlight a day to give you their best. Add fresh compost at planting, add water and you are an official gardener!

Here are a few key tasks for the organic garden in April…

Growing Organic Food:

• Yes, you can still plant potatoes!
• Plant asparagus and rhubarb
• Thin radishes, beets and carrots as needed

Tools and Equipment:

• Ice cream scoops are great to dig holes of uniform size when setting out transplants, and the dirt slides right off when you release the handle.
• When raising and transplanting seedlings in the house or greenhouse, an ordinary table fork is an ideal transplanting tool. You can loosen the plants in the seed flat without damaging the roots. Then you can open a hole for the new transplant in the new flat or pot by rocking it sideways. Finally, by sliding the tines around the delicate stem and pressing down, the transplant can be firmed in the growing medium.

Perennials, Annuals, and Bulbs for April:

• Plants bought from greenhouses need to be hardened off (acclimated to the reduced humidity and cooler temperatures of the outdoors) before being planted in the landscape. Place newly purchased plants outside during the day, but bring in at night to protect from early season, cool, night temperatures that may injure or kill the plants. Gradually, the plants can be left outside for longer periods of time until they have fully acclimated and can be planted.
• Do not remove foliage from spring flowering bulbs as growth is needed for next year’s flowers

Oh, and uhm, yeah, let the mowing begin! April Lawn Care