The Garden in April is full of potential - and mud.

Here in middle Tennessee (zone 6b) April is high time to plant the main season garden. Our likely last frost date is about April 15 and by the end of the month even the most conservative gardeners are planting out tomatoes and peppers.

Spring weather can be very frustrating for gardeners – often going from too cold to too wet – be prepared with seeds, bedding plants and other supplies so that you can  jump on it when the opportunity arises.   By the time the weather is reliably dry for garden work it may be well on its way to becoming too dry – seize the day.

If you haven’t already planted  peas, brassicas, lettuce or other cool season crops or you want to do a succession planting you have a window of opportunity early in the month to do so, but the longer you wait the less likely success becomes because hot weather will arrive before many of those can mature.  However you are more likely to be successful if you set out plants instead of trying to propagate from seed.  Potatoes can be planted any time, but earlier is better for this cool season crop as well.

Once the last frost date has passed most things can be planted with a few notable exceptions.

Sweet corn and beans both require warm soil (70 degrees F more or less) for reliable germination.  Too much rain can also cause poor germination rates, because seed can rot.  It’s probably best to wait until the end of April  for these crops.

Phenology For April

• “Plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrels ear, or when apple blossoms start to fall.” Consider that a squirrels ear is about 3/4 inch more or less – This old saying is probably a great guideline for field, dent, and heirloom varieties, but you might want to wait a little longer before planting hybrid sweet corn.
• “Set out tomatoes when dogwood winter has passed, or when wild day lilies start to bloom.” Dogwood Winter is a cold front which often passes while dogwoods are in bloom or may actually trigger them to bloom. This year – 2009 -  dogwood winter was April 6 – 7 and featured overnight lows around 30 F daytime highs around 40  and a rain/snow mix all day on the 6th.
  
• “Plant peppers and eggplant outside when bearded iris is in bloom.” This one probably applies to all manor of cucurbita,  cucumbers, melons, and squash.
• Watch out for “Blackberry Winter” – A cold front associated with the flowering of wild blackberrys – often the last wide spread frost of the year occurs during blackberry winter.

Strawberries will be flowering soon (or already) and – along with other tender plants – will need to be protected from frost once you see blooms.  When berries start to ripen later in the season they will need protection from birds and other berry eatin’ varmints.  Plan ahead to have horticultural fleece, wire mesh or floating row covers ready to deploy if you plan on getting any fruit.  Those same materials can also be used later to protect young squash plants from egg laying vine borer moths.

April is not a bad time to plant strawberries as long as you have realistic expectations.  Strawberries set out in April will yield very little if any fruit this year, but by September they will each produce many daughter plants which can be transplanted at that time for a crop next year, and a great crop the next spring.  A six pack of plants started now in rich soil will be a nice little berry patch by next year if you play your cards right.

It’s Almost Slug Season – Joyous Joy.  Warming wet weather along with tender plants = slug paradise.  Watch for the tell tale holes in vegetation and take prompt swift measures – I favor jar lids full of beer for the slimy little lushes to drink their selves to death in.   Giving the kids each a flashlight and salt shaker could also be an effective – if less politically correct – form of slug based entertainment.  Mulch, rocks, boards and other rubbish provide hiding places so consider removing those things from problem areas if possible.  Also avoid over watering.

Get a Bird House! – While you are at the garden center consider stimulating the economy by buying a bird house.  But, don’t buy one of the cutesy gingerbread looking houses that are more for decoration than for the birds – instead get one which is specifically made for a particular bird – bluebirds and wrens are particularly receptive.  Birds might nest in an ornamental birdhouse, but the poor bird ergonomics can leave them vulnerable to nest predation.   If you put up a bird house now it might have occupants in just a few days.  Getting to see babies in the nest is a great treat for children – and adults.  Educate yourself a bit by Googling for the targeted species to learn about nest box location needs.

In April the greenhouse is full to over flowing.

In the GreenHouse

Late this month I will probably remove the plastic covering from my 50 Dollar greenhouse or at least remove the doors.  Right now it is completely full of salad greens of all kinds, container plants, tomatoes trying to get an early start, early broccoli and cauliflower that is just starting to form heads, and tons of chick weed.  However I don’t foresee a lot of use for it once the weather turns reliably warm, and the plastic will be more likely to serve another year if I don’t leave it in the hot sun all summer.  I consider the greenhouse to be a great success so far – well worth the effort and small cash outlay – and I have high hopes that as I learn more about how to manage it, that it (along with cold frames) will become a key part of sustainable year around food production for my family.

Each flower will soon be a sweet juicy strawberry.

When you visit the nursery or garden center in the Spring you will probably see potted strawberry plants for sale – some already with berries starting to form.  The thing is, Spring is too late to grow any strawberries. However, it’s the perfect time to grow strawberry plants – then you can get lots of fresh sweet strawberries out of your garden next spring.

Go ahead and buy a few of those plants this spring, and set them out 16″-24″ apart in a more or less permanent location in your garden.  If you can bring yourself to do it pluck off those berries as soon as possible – they won’t amount to much anyway – let the plants concentrate on growing.  Keep them weeded and watered, and fertilized this summer, and by fall you will have lots and lots of these…

One strawberry Mother will spread by runners to form many daughter plants. If not thinned in the fall, very few strawberries will form, but each of those daughter plants can be transplanted in September or October and will bear fruit the following spring.

In September, transplant those into your “real” strawberry patch.  You could easily get a dozen daughter plants from each of the originals that you purchased this spring.  Next spring you will be rewarded for your efforts.

A simple cloche made by cutting the bottom out of a milk jug may be all that's required to protect early garden plants from cold weather.

By April in zone 6 we’re experiencing some really nice Spring weather.  A few people (me) are already setting out tomatoes early in the month and covering them with milk jugs until they get going.  Some even started planting in March – potatoes, brassicas, and garden peas especially.

I’ve often heard the opinion that starting your garden “too” early is a waste – plants which are set out later will quickly catch up to those which have had to suffer through erratic spring weather.  I accept that this might be true, however I like to get an early start anyway for these reasons:

1. I just LIKE to get an early start.
2. The weather is fine and makes the work much more enjoyable.
3. It’s easier to harden off the plants during cool moist weather than it is once it starts to get hot.
4. You don’t have to be as vigilant about watering as you would later.
5. If you wait until later to plant everything all at once the job can be over whelming – so an early start allows you to spread out the work load.
6. If you get the opportunity to plant early in the season you might want to take it because wet weather (or life)  might prevent you from working in the garden when you need to later.
7. In my completely anecdotal and unscientific experience – Gardeners who start early have more overall success.

Starting early is a gamble, and you must remain vigilant and prepared in case of cold weather – frosts and overnight temps below freezing are a distinct possibility in April.  As a general rule your plants will survive those late frosts without a hitch if you cover them with anything – sheets, buckets, plastic, mulch, anything – so be prepared with sufficient materials to do so and watch the weather reports.

Even so, every once in a while a really freakish late cold front will blow through and kill a few things – but not very often.

A few things really should not be planted until the soil warms up – notably corn and beans* – these seeds are likely to rot in cool wet soil before they germinate.  However, you can get an early start even with those by planting them under a simple plastic tunnel to warm the soil and protect them from cold and too much rain.

So maybe my tomatoes won’t ripen any earlier, but I’ve never regretted getting an early start in my garden, and I have regretted a late one.

Happy Gardening!

* Fava Beans are different and can be planted much earlier – you should give them a try!

Stevia (stevia rebaudiana) is a new world herb that you might have only recently heard of.  Stevia leaves – while having zero calories – are claimed to be 30 times sweeter than sugar, and in fact one of the common names is “candy leaf” – the extract is supposedly 300 times sweeter than sugar!  Stevia is also reputed to have several health benefits including the  prevention of tooth decay and diabetes.  I don’t know about that, but I would guess that using less sugar probably would have those effects.

Is the idea of growing your own natural organic zero calorie sweetener intriguing to you?

These Stevia plants are 3 weeks old.

I’m growing stevia for the first time this year from Burpee brand seeds that I bought at a local home improvement center.  I had heard that stevia was very hard to start from seeds, but I got about 50% germination rate by using bottom heat, keeping them very warm, continuously damp, and supplying 17 hours / day of florescent light.  After 3 weeks I have 6 healthy looking (if a bit slow growing) plants from the dozen or so seeds that came in the pack.  Since I have so few I’m being extra careful with them right now, and making sure that they stay above 50 degrees at all times.

I haven’t really found very much culture information about stevia yet other than that they don’t tolerate cold temperatures, and are a bit hard to start from seed, but easy to start from cuttings, and have few if any insect pests.  I also heard from a fellow in Australia that they grow almost as weeds there because they self seed.  He said that among other uses they put the raw leaves in salads.  I have in mind to try it in some herbal tea mixes, and perhaps brewing a tea with it and using it as a condiment.  I also hope to save my own seeds and perhaps over winter a plant or two next year.  Maybe I’ll sell a few starts at the farmers market if all goes well.

Until very recently it was not legal to even refer to stevia as a sweetener in the United States despite it’s very long record of benign use in other countries around the world.  Stevia could only be marketed as a dietary supplement in the U.S. -  But, now that the sweetener industry is ready to roll out their own stevia products that law has been changed.  Guess who lobbied the FDA to keep it illegal as a sweetener all those years?

Anyway, you might want to consider trying to grow stevia in your garden this year – if you do, let me know how it goes.

Happy Gardening

More information about Stevia

Welcome back Stumbleupon Gardeners!

If this looks like too much work – I did a much simpler door on the other end.

This weekend I finally got time to start on the doors for my 50 dollar greenhouse.  The design that I came up with is light, strong, simple, and can be built easily and quickly using only a circular saw and a hand drill.  I must admit that I did use a table saw to rip out the stock, and put it through a planer to accurately dimension it, but this was only a convenience, and isn’t at all necessary for a good result.  This polytunnel door design can be built on a set of sawhorses out in the driveway, but it will be a lot easier if you get someone to help you hold things while you saw, drill and fasten parts together.

Needless to say you can seriously hurt yourself with power tools, and you should follow all applicable safety rules for the tools that you use.  No kidding, a friend of mine lost an eye about a year ago because he wasn’t wearing safety glasses.  Don’t make a mistake like that.  Be Careful.

You will need enough 1×2 stock to make your door – two pieces to make the sides, and three pieces to make the top, bottom and middle brace.  The dimensions of these pieces will be determined by the size of the door that you are making to fit your polytunnel  hoop house.  The sides need to be the same length as the finished height of your door while the top, bottom, and brace need to be 3 inches less than the width of the finished door.

Pre-drill holes before screwing the frame together.  If you don’t pre-drill you will probably have problems with your wooden parts splitting when you drive the screws.  Use a bit that’s just small enough to allow the screws to get a good bite.  Try it on a scrap of wood first to make sure that you aren’t pre-drilling too loose or tight.

I used 3″ washer headed self drilling screws (I still had to pre-drill the holes though to prevent splitting) but any 3″ screw would work. If there’s a gap between the parts after you screw them together – back out the screw and re-drive it.  There is no point in gluing these joints because glue doesn’t hold very well on end grain – trust me, don’t bother – the finished product will be very strong anyway if you follow the plan.

Your frame should look something like this after you screw it together.

Now drill a hole in each corner to thread the brace wires through.

Thread a loop of wire diagonally both ways and secure the ends by twisting them together, and then twisting the tags back around the main wires. I used galvanized electric fence wire for this, but you can get a similar product called “utility” wire at any hardware store or home improvement center.  You can also use small rope/large string, but wire is really better because it isn’t as likely to stretch.

Clip the ends off and bend them neatly so that they won’t stick out and snag people, clothes, or greenhouse plastic. There has to be a better way to do this than I’ve done here.  Gotta’ look into that.

Check your frame for square by measuring diagonally across the corners.  If they aren’t about the same then tweak the frame a bit to get it pretty close to square. Although this is a pretty forgiving design and unless it’s really  out of square it probably won’t matter much – within a quarter of an inch is great.

Now use some scraps of wood to tension the wires.  You want them to be merely tight, but not like guitar strings – just without any slack.  This will pull all of the joints together so that they aren’t likely to come apart or sag.  Check for square again to make sure you haven’t torqued everything out of whack.

This is how the tensioners finish off.  You may have notice that I’m a fan of this kind of device – I used it on my polytunnel greenhouse for the same reason that I’m using it here – It’s strong, light, easy, and it works.

Now glue triangles of plywood at each of the frame intersections – the corners, and at the cross brace.  Notice the pencil marks to help keep the glue in bounds.  Use a water proof glue like Titebond 3, and secure the connection with screws or nails. I used scraps of 1/2″ plywood for this, but anything from 1/4″ to 3/4″ sheet goods would work, or even solid wood, but lightness is a virtue so mind the weight. I used what I had.

You will be amazed at how strong and light this structure is. You can certainly use other sizes of lumber instead of 1×2 to make your doors – 1x3s would also work great for the sides, and 1×4 or 1x6s would be fine for the other parts.  However,  your door will be heavier (although it might be stronger), and you will probably have to recess the screws that hold it all together so that you get enough penetration for them to hold – or find some really long screws. You will of course have to adjust the measurements to work with your door size and the lumber that you use. Keep in mind that if your door is very heavy it might be more than your polytunnel greenhouse frame can support without some beefing up.

When I turned my frame over I discovered that some of my screws were just a tad too long, and they poked through the other side.  This had to be fixed or it would cut the plastic covering and would probably cut me or someone else sooner or later.

Just a few strokes of a file on each screw takes care of this small issue.

Nice and flush.

Now for the Plastic – After building the greenhouse I discovered that condensation and rain will collect at the bottom of the plastic if it can, so don’t fold the plastic around the bottom of the door just staple it flush so that water can run out the bottom.  On the sides and top leave a little extra to fold it around and double it up…

Like this.

Plain old (recycled) loose pin interior door hinges are fine for this application – be sure and install them right side up though so that the pins don’t work loose and fall out.  With regular gate hinges the pins would be attached instead of loose and you couldn’t remove the doors as easily (by tapping the hinge pins out) when the weather turns warm next summer.

Another recycled item.  You could also use a cabinet knob, or just a piece of 2×2 for a handle, or even a strap of leather from an old belt.

Ready to go…  Wouldn’t you like to explore that shop?  I used to love the “Mister Wizzard” TV show when I was a kid, and my life is now complete that I have a shop like his.  Now all I need is a box on the shelf labeled “Dinosaurs” – I always wondered what was in that box.

Because of insufficient foresight  I have this “situation” that I had to deal with before I could hang my door. The door frame needs to be unobstructed all the way to the ground.

I took the quick and dirty route of shoring up the problem spot with plastic and a scrap of galvanized metal after trimming the wood off flush.

Now that you’re ready to hang the door put a scrap of lumber under the door first to space it off of the ground.  Since my polytunnel greenhouse site slopes, I only needed to do this on the high side.

Now just set the door down on the spacer and screw it temporarily to the greenhouse in just the position that you want.  Stand back and take a good look for obvious problems before you continue.

I made my door about an inch and a half wider than the door opening on the greenhouse and a couple of inches taller because I want the door to close against the greenhouse itself instead of using a door stop.  If you have much snow you might want your doors to open in – think about what your needs are, and adjust the design to do what you want with the materials that you have readily available.

Now, hold a piece of lumber that will be the jamb right against the side of the door and mark about a quarter inch above the top of the door.  Cut it off at this mark, and do the same thing on the other side.  Then screw the two resultant side jambs securely to the greenhouse leaving about a quarter of an inch of space between the jambs and the door.

The 2x4s that I used for jambs are 1/4″ thicker than the actual door – this turned out to be a good combination because it left enough space between the door and the greenhouse for the door to open and close easily, but because the polytunnel plastic is a bit poofy there isn’t really much of a gap for air to leak through.  Serendipity I guess. If you do have problem gaps you can weather strip with scraps of foam carpet pad (or even carpet) and your staple gun.

Once you’ve attached the jambs you can screw the hinges to them, and remove the temporary screws that have been holding the door in place. At this point the door should open and close easily – if it binds or rubs excessively, back up and adjust before you go on.  A common error would be to make the space between the door and the jambs too tight.

Now cut a piece of lumber to use as the head jamb.  I ripped an angle on mine so that it would shed water better.  I stapled the strip of black plastic to the back before attaching the head jamb.

The strip that was ripped off is then attached to the front to extend the jamb and give an overhang so that rain won’t run over the door. You could actually accomplish the same thing by just using a 2×4 that lays flat for the head jamb and letting it stick out.

Then, just staple and trim the plastic strip thusly.

Add a simple turn bolt both inside and out and your door is finished.  Almost finished – I shoveled a bit of dirt in to close up the gap under my door, and I will probably add a simple sweep to the bottom later.  But for now it works great, and looks fine. It’s easy to open and close even with just one hand.

On the other end of the hoop house I did something much simpler – basically a well secured curtain.

Secure two or three pieces of string at the top of the door opening – these will be used to tie the curtain open when you have it rolled up in warm weather.

On both sides of the door opening apply two strips of wood leaving a gap between them.

Hang the curtain by wrapping the top of it around a stick and then screwing it to the greenhouse.

Put two or three turn bolts on each side

To fasten the curtain shut push a stick into the gap on the sides..

And secure it with the turn bolts.

And that’s it.  It isn’t as convenient to open and close as a hinged door, but it gets the job done.

Now that the doors are up it gets pretty warm in the polytunnel on a sunny day even when it’s cold outside – I have the same problem with my cold frame.  Next time I’ll give you the scoop on some really easy automatic vents that you can make for about $10 – $15.  Subscribe to the DoorGarden RSS Feed and you’ll never miss a thing.

Thanks for coming by! How about a thumbs up if this is helpful?

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