April is one of my favorite months of the year. The grass greens, flowers begin to bloom, the days warm, and signs of life pop up all around! Winter comes to and end and spring is upon us.
I am sharing monthly garden to-do lists here on the blog for two reasons: for my future self to refer back to and for fellow gardeners to see the types of things I’m doing each month to stay on top of the garden. Go back and check out my Gardening To-Do List | January and Gardening To-Do List | February to see what I was up to last month.
Here’s what I’m planning to do for the garden this month:
- Up-potting my tomato and pepper plants.
- Prepping the garden soil.
- Planting herbs in the kitchen flower beds. See My Herb Garden plans from last year!
- Plant beans, watermelon, popcorn, and cucumbers in the garden.
I’d like to share the tasks on my garden to-do list for April. Though it may seem like nothing can be done for the garden during these early spring days, but much prep takes place now! Curious what other gardeners do during the early spring in preparation for the new gardening season? Continue reading and I’ll share my list with you. I also plan to share a list like this one for each month of the year, so come back for more all year round!
Up-potting my tomato and pepper plants
Its time to move those pepper and tomato plants out of the seed starting tray and into bigger containers. For us this means plastic cups, but there are other options as well!
Up-potting the starts also means that they move into our mudroom once the weather allows for it. This room is a nice in between before we move on to Hardening Them Off outside.
The starts, once in their new containers, won’t be under a grow light any more, but our sunny mudroom should give them plenty of sunshine for a few weeks time!
Prepping the garden soil
This process looks different every year. Sometimes it means pulling out old plants (if we didn’t already do it during the fall), tilling heavily weeded areas, and any amending that is needed.
Planting herbs in the kitchen flower beds
See My Herb Garden plans that I made last year. This included some big goals for adding lots of herbs in the flower beds right by my kitchen door. This way I’d have easy access to them as I cook and bake.
While quite a few of them took off and are already thriving this year, there are a few that didn’t get established, do I’d like to replant those this year.
Plant Into the Garden
In Missouri, our last frost date is April 15th, so the end of April should be safe for planting into the garden.
This includes planting:
- Beans
- Watermelon
- Popcorn
- Cucumbers
We may wait a few weeks into May before transplanting the peppers and tomatoes into the garden since they require much more heat and sunshine than most of our other crops.
More on Gardening
- Gardening To-Do List | March
- Gardening To-Do List | February
- Gardening To-Do List | January
- My Gardening Schedule
- A Tour Through my Summer Garden
- How to Plant Tomato Starts
- Using a Grow Light | Seedlings