April Gardener's Calendar

Dave lists the gardening tasks you can perform in April to prepare for the growing season.

(Music Playing) I am Dave Epstein, welcome to growing wisdom and we are on our April calendar today and of course, in April, it really is one of the first months you can you do a lot of gardening across many parts of the country and one of the things that lot of us like to put on our pansies, and that is one thing you can do in April. And you know, speaking with some ladies recently, and they were asking, you know, what colors do you put in? It is really up to you. Whatever colors you like so to work. Some people like all one color, some people like to mix it up. I tend to love the yellows and the oranges with the blue. Those are my personal favorites. Other things to do in April: You definitely want to start taking care of your lawns this time of the year. If you need lime, early spring is a good time to lime your lawns. Also put down pre emergent. I love using corn hooden. It is organic. You want to get it down just about the time the forsythia is beginning to bloom. Also it is a good time of the year to condition your soils. So put a little bit of organic matter. Keep low on the nitrogen. That’s that first number on the fertilizer products. You want that number to be low. More and more research shows that we do not need as much nitrogen so you want more of the phosphorous and the phosphate. Do soil testing this time of the year. You really know what to put in. You would not treat yourself without knowing what is going on. Do not treat your yards without knowing what is going on as well. Now, if you have salt damage from the year, you want to remove some of that soil before you replant the grass, because if the salt is in that area, the grass will continue to die as it comes up so watch out for that as well. Also, this time of the year, good time of the year to plant things like onions, parsnip, you can also plant peas and carrots. Any of those cool weather crops can go in especially in the northern latitude. If you are in a wet period with a lot of rain, hold off, you do not want to plant seeds when it is very wet as they will rot. One other thing, you can do some pruning. Do not prune things that flower early in the spring and early spring, you actually prune things that flower later in the summer. If you prune the spring blooming things, it will actually take the blooms off. And as you head over to your garden centers, also they will be having deals because there is not as much business, so the nice idea to get some of your planting done early on, it is not as busy and you can do planting in April. Find some of those holes in your garden and also if you had winter damage, be sure that you remove the winter damage this time of the year before everything leaves out and you cannot see it anymore. So we want you to come back every week for all of our tips and help and of course, every month, we do a new garden calendar here at growingwisdom.com. (Music Playing)