Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

April In The Gardens

April in the gardens….a frustrating cold and wet month, in a Spring that wasn’t showing up. It got better by the end of the month, but being in a holding pattern wasn’t easy.

Even with the long and wet winter and early spring, our trees finally bloomed. They have all been late this year. We have some apple trees currently blooming this week in May!

As April rolled in, I tried my hand at medicinal herb seeds. Not all are easy to grow and some I had zero germination. Not to say I won’t try again (I will), but I learned that while I might have a green thumb, not everything comes easy.

On the couple sunny days in April, I got as much work as I could done.

Peas. The crop that always grows here in the PNW. Not this year. All my beds got turned under and I gave up around the first of May. Again, too cold. Too wet.

Yet, crops like Golden Raspberries that I had over wintered? They did fabulous in the cold. By the end of the month these had tripled or more in size, and I had sold them all.

I thought it interesting this year to watch Spring come – no matter what the weather was – the flowers forced through.

But it does get very stressful when you cannot plant, you can’t do much. Even the grass wasn’t growing.

But I at least went out and dug up beds that were empty and found work to do.

The boys little chairs, just waiting for the sun!

Seeing a bed ready is very satisfying.

I planted it with a number of golden raspberries. They grow up and don’t need to be trellised or kept up. 2 crops a year. It’s a a great berry, and we love them.

New location for the bees? Yes. Currently we have no hives but might as well work on it.

Just knowing things are moving along helped with how dreary it was all month.

Peach tree in bloom.

Marshmallow plant.

That point where you are begging online for gallon size pots is a good sign though.

Second year strawberries, potted up.

The tomato crop early on in the year.

New type: Red Wonder Strawberry.

My Golden Raspberry starts, right before selling time.

As I potted up the tomatoes and strawberries, the greenhouse started filling up.

Finally, near the end of the month, the blueberries started putting on flowers.

Even fuller.

First Lavender blooms!

End of the month, I kicked all the tomatoes out of the greenhouse. They needed time to harden up. In the week before our first plant sale, they took rain deluges, hail and even an 80* day. I don’t baby plants though. You make it or you don’t.

I turned under the peas not doing anything and got the tomato bed ready.

Planted with 36 total.

And at the end of the month the weather predictions finally started showing we might see good weather. Well, more on that next month 😉 Gardening and farming are tricky things to do. I have to accept some years are much harder than others. And this year I am learning so much more.