April To-Do List

Outside:

• Begin working and amending the soil (if it needs it)
• Add lime to the vegetable garden (it needs it this year)
• Add elemental sulfur to blueberry hedge and other "acid-loving" shrubs (if needed)
• Prune apple trees and other fruit trees BY FIRST WEEK!!!
• Weigh down branches on fruit trees to encourage wider crotch angles
• Prune rose bushes when forsythia blooms
• Fertilize rose bushes before their leaves appear
• Scatter seeds in perennial bed (poppy, foxglove, cleome)
• Continue pruning bushes that need it - most should have been done in March!
• Sow seeds indoors: 

Seeds, Indoors:

• Cucumber : April 26 (Started on April 17th, transplanted April 28)
• Tomatoes: April 12 - 19 (I started these on April 6th; by April 17, all have sprouted)
• Marigolds -French, Snowball:  April 12 - 26 (April 17)
• Marigolds - Yellow: (started April 25)
• Dahlias (Potted on April 23)
• Zinnias:  April 12 - 19 (Started on April 17th)
• Basil:  (started April 25)
• Cabbage:  (started April 25)
• Cantaloupe: (started April 25)
• Watermelon:  (started April 25)
• Bachelor's Button:  (Started April 17)

Tubers, Indoors:

• Bring out dahlia tubers and start indoors by mid-April

Update:  Today is May 6th and I still have 3 weeks before I put my plants in the garden.  When the time comes, I will determine whether I should have started any of these earlier or later.