The soil is warming, and daily — whether anyone witnesses or not — plants are advancing their growth and insects are beginning to stir. Even if it fools us, April is the time to get going with garden work, and “April showers bring May flowers …”
Soil temps in my vegetable garden are currently a “cool range” of 56°F: still low, but workable, and fine for radishes, onions, brassicas, and greens including lettuce, mustard, and rapini/cima di rapa. Already dandelions, chickweed, and lamb’s lettuce are growing well, as is the unloved dusty purple lamium, henbit.
The drastic flooding in the Midwest, and weather in other parts of the country, may likely affect food prices and availability — adversely — in the coming season: a good summer to put extra effort into your vegetable growing. Do consider what constitutes the staples of your cuisine and pantry. Can you grow it?
Some home garden experts such as Carol Deppe (“The Resilient Gardener”) claim kitchen food security depends chiefly on potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs. For myself it would be onions/garlic; root crops such as potatoes; squash; chickens/eggs; and legumes. Herbs may seem incidental, but add flavor and quality to home cooking. All perennializers are valuable.
Seed starting: Grow flats as dry as possible to reduce damping-off and fungus gnat activity. If possible, take the seedlings or flats outside to get maximum light and begin the hardening-off process. Sudden exposure to air currents and strong sunlight may burn leaves, creating a setback for your plants. “Hardening off” refers to letting small tender plants gradually become accustomed to outside conditions.
Chitting of seed potatoes is a debatable subject, with some gardeners being avowed chitters, and with others never doing it but getting good results anyhow. Chitting is a presprouting (dahlias tubers are often chitted, too) of small potatoes or pieces of potato, and then planting these, which are presumed to take off much faster, after soils are warmer, traditionally around Good Friday.
Chitting chatter: Place seed potatoes somewhere bright but cool. Many people stand them in egg cartons. Let the sprouts grow to just under an inch long. You want plump and green, unlike those pale and lanky sprouts on potatoes at the bottom of the vegetable bin.
According to Alys Fowler, a British garden writer, “if you rub off the side sprouts and just keep the ones on the rose end (the top end of the tuber), you will get fewer, larger tubers. If more, smaller potatoes are wanted, leave all the sprouts on and plant the tuber on its side.”
Pruning anxiety?
To return to a familiar spring refrain, pruning anxiety, let the rule of bloom time guide you for typical shrubbery: If it blooms before June 21, prune right after blooming. If it blooms after June 21, prune now or anytime up until summer.
A good example is forsythia, in bloom now. The plant begins to grow branches that carry next year’s flowers over the summer months. Shape shrubs as soon as blooming has finished, being mindful that they are tip-rooting plants: Arching branches root where they touch soil. Every year remove one to three mature canes at the base to renew the plant.
Make neat cuts with sharp clippers, loppers, or pruning saws. On larger branches or limbs, observe the branch collar and cut just outside it. Make an undercut first. Avoid creating ugly stubs.
Not all plants we prune are typical woody shrubs. Some, such as potentilla, buddleia, hydrangea, caryopteris, perovskia, lavender, santolina, and Montauk daisies are somewhere in between herbaceous perennials and woody shrubs: Forget about the branch collar when pruning these, and treat them more like herbaceous perennials that need leaf-muddle removal or a haircut.
Disappearing bulbs
It contradicts the conventional advice to “plant bulbs of narcissus and galanthus [snowdrops] in gardens where there is high deer and rabbit pressure, due to their poisonousness.” Over time I have planted hundreds upon hundreds of them, and should have carpets. Instead of increasing as they used to, poisonous or not, they are disappearing. It looks as if the activity of voles, shrews, chipmunks, or moles in the ground must be the cause. Wishing horrible stomachaches to whatever is dining upon them.
Placing bird feeders
I suspect the mirrorlike reflective surfaces of high R-value glass are worse, but all large-expanse windows and patio doors can look very like sky to birds escaping hawks or sudden noises that startle them.
When placing feeders close to the house, to provide cover from predator hawks, we also invite birds into close proximity with these false “skyscapes.” I placed Xs of masking tape on nearby windows and doors, hoping to decrease bird-glass collisions and avoid these small sorrows. Prayer flags, Fourth of July festoons, or other items strung across expanses of glass would signal a warning to birds, too.
Garden information
Is it a peculiar coincidence that many gardeners also have collections of good or favorite garden books? Although I use the Internet for much information and guidance, I also reference many books on garden subjects. This is because the Internet is full of hogwash, and there is often little indication what is reliable advice or misinformation.
Many websites and blogs are heavily intertwined with product placement and advertising, so caveat emptor, “let the buyer beware.” It is a further confusion when it emerges that one often needs knowledge or experience to distinguish one, reliable advice, from the other, misinformation.
Libraries, and publishers such as Chelsea Green (chelseagreen.com) and New Society (newsociety.com), are sources of a wide array of garden and farming publications, with a high level of solid and reliable information on well-timed topics.