April is an exciting month, as many of my plants are getting larger now ready for transplanting and moving to the outside garden. I am busy getting my large gardens ready for the new spring seasons by uncovering my birdbath, I have started tilling areas where one new garden is going in this year, and I have been busy maintaining plants in the greenhouse as the plants are starting to really take off now.
Even though I have started turning off my heaters during long stretches of warms spells I am starting to take down different plastics and insulation that I have been using in the greenhouse. Keeping the environment over freezing is my main goal, but I also need to start ‘hardening’ some of my plants as they will be used in my outdoor gardens soon. Watching the high and low temperatures I am able to learn more about when I need to leave the heat on for the night and when to open the vents during the day, so far I have been lucky and not had a freezing night when I have left the heat off. I have many flowers, which are starting to forms blooms although not many have been blossoming except for a few marigolds that I have planted in November and December and a few bulbs that I have been experimenting with in forcing them to come up.
As the weather is warming up, I am watering all of my plants now bringing them all back from their ‘hibernation’ from winter months. I have been starting to trim back some of my hanging baskets and my planters to make well rounded full greenery before some buds start to form. I have even started planting some of my bag flowers to get a real jump on the deck and patio hanging flowers that I really treasure. I really love the month of April as the trees are starting to come alive and many home centers are starting to carry trees and bushes again. I could spend hours walking through and picking out new goodies for my gardens. Because I grow so many flowers and vegetables in the greenhouse, I have little need to actually buy plants so I can spend my extra money on shrubs, containers, or fertilizer for the lawn. This year I was really lucky, in the last week of April; I actually had my first cucumber harvested from my greenhouse! I was surprised that it grew so well because I hadn’t been expected vegetables until mid or late may but the variety that I tried was a very short growing type and it worked wonders!