April Gardening Checklist
Planning and working in April
After itching to get out in the yard and garden during the cold season, it's now time to get out and get going. This is an incredibly busy month so organization helps get as much done as possible.
As a cautionary note: Make sure your garden beds are not too wet. If it's been raining and the soil is saturated, you'll have to postpone your gardening for a bit longer.
- Dig up your garden beds early this month. Turn under any cover crops you might have planted last fall. Let the beds settle for a week or so. Break up large clumps.
- The compost, which has been breaking down unobtrusively in a corner of the yard, may be ready to yield its wealth of organic goodness. Get to the bottom of your compost pile and pull out the most rotted parts to mix up for composted soil. Mixed with soil and forced through a screen, this makes the best dressing for covering seeds. Nutrient rich compost improves the texture, water rentention, and drainage of your soil.
- Prepare for pests. Slugs need to be killed as they are found. The smaller slugs are more greedy than big slugs and can eliminate small transplants overnight. Many pests are attracted to weak and sickly plants, so conditioning soil not only promotes growth, it can actually deter infestations of aphids, powdery mildew, and blackspot. Use biological controls whenever possible instead of relying on chemical sprays or dusts. Use only organic pest control methods if possible.
- Top dress your lawn this month with and inch or so of compost if you didn't get to it in March. Mixing it with a bit of wood ash ensures strong healthy growth. Once spread, you can also overseed patchy areas.
- Repot houseplants. Take them out of their current pots. Examine roots. If they are root bound, repot with fresh potting soil in larger pots.
- Harden off seedlings to prepare for transplant.
- Transplant seedlings and young plants once the danger of frost is past. Use plant markers to mark each plant so you'll remember what you put where. Protect tender plants from wind and pests.
- Direct sow early spring vegetables like lettuces, spinach, and other spring greens as well as flowers such as nasturtiums. Other flowers that can be direct sown include snapdragons, asters, alyssum, calendula, centaurea, pansies, violas, scabiosa, mignonette, dianthus, poppy, cosmos, gypsophila, annual phlox, verbena, and ageratum. Marigolds can be planted during the last half of the month.
- Thin seedlings ruthlessly to encourage growth.
- By now you should have some idea of what perennials survived the winter and what needs to be yanked out and replaced this year. This is also a good time to move plants that may not have been well placed last season. These include hosta, ferns, and artemesia. It's an ideal time to space plants out, especially if you are susceptible to that common malady of cramming too much in to too small an area.
- Divide perennials this month. They include chysanthemums, delphinium, anemone, fall asters, daylilies, and Shasta daisy.
- If the ground isn't frozen, plant bulbs. Prepare hole with a bit of bone meal first, then plant.
- Sow herbs such as chives, parsley, sage, dill, thyme, marjoram, etc. in open spots on the border.
- Plant trees and shrubs now to give them plenty of time to get established before the summer.
- Prune grapes and fruit trees now. Don't wait.
- If you have a cold frame, any time during the spring is good for cleaning and repairing for next fall.
- Start summer vegies in individual pots indoors now. They will be ready to transplant in May and early June.
Books
Trowel and Error : Over 700 Tips, Remedies and Shortcuts for the Gardener
New Illustrated Guide to Gardening
If you haven't had time to complete all of your indoor projects, but the garden is calling, hire a qualified contractor to get them done. ContractorNexus can help you find a licensed professional in your area.
