Garden Tasks for April

Paul McCollum published this blog post several years ago and it holds up well today.

April To-Do List for Zone 9

• 

  Slugs.
  If slugs and snails are decimating your plants, collect them in the evening, when you're most likely to spot them. They make good snacks for hungry chickens!
• Plant pumpkins, summer squash, melons, and other vegetables that thrive in heat.
• Every 2 weeks from now until late summer, plant small blocks of bush beans and sweet corn to extend the harvest until frost.
• Thin fruits on fruit trees to increase their size and keep branches from breaking.
• Plant summer bedding plants, such as petunias, lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum), wax begonias, and impatiens.
• Sow seeds of nasturtiums, marigolds, portulaca, amaranth, salvias, vinca (Catharanthus roseus), sunflowers, and zinnias.
• Plant perennials like ornamental alliums, bellflowers (Campanula spp.), daisies, yarrow, daylilies, coreopsis, penstemon, perennial geraniums (Geranium spp.), iris, and statice.

April To-Do List for Zone 10

• 

  Strawflowers.
  Plant perennials so they can settle in before the summer heat arrives; give them plenty of water.
• Plant heat-loving bedding plants, such as vinca (Catharanthus roseus), strawflowers (Helichrysum bracteatum), blanket flowers (Gaillardia spp.), and gazanias.
• Plant roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), amaranth, and Malabar spinach (Basella alba) now through August; make sure you give the Malabar spinach some shade and extra water.
• Try some tropical edibles: Buy malanga, gingerroot, and others at the market. Cut them into pieces at least 1⁄2 inch long, and plant. Harvest from October through December.
• Trellis tropical cucurbits (luffa, chayote, Tahitian squash, and so on) on a fence, and reap the rewards this fall.

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