April 2020 More Early Spring Gardening

April 20 snow on 3 flower beds

More Early Spring Gardening

The snow seemed to stay longer than it was welcome, as seems to be the case in recent years, but once the weather warmed up 2 weeks or so ago, the snow started melting away quickly and now on the last day of April, there is only tiny patches here and there in the remote shaded parts of the trails here at Scenic Sands.

April 20/20 stack stone bed and vegetable garden - snow has melted there

(The rose bushes are still wrapped in this photo, but I did start unwrapping/ unmulching them the week of April 27-29.)

April 15

I transplanted tomatoes into bigger pots in the greenhouse, Chris my husband helper did the majority of them. Still a few small ones left to do.

I replanted (soaked) stringless green beans.from a new box purchased last fall. I composted all the old beans that I have had in the big package for a number of years. I put 5 beans in a tall glass with paper towels. They sprouted roots 3 days later! :) 

I also planted 6 soaked bean straight into dirt/ pots but they haven't sprouted yet.

Top of Rock Garden after a bit of clean up

I planted 2 old Firebird Dahlia tubers, both have a small shoot (April 18/20).

My old Thomas Edison tuber has not shown any signs of life so I bought a new tuber at Canadian Tire (April 17) which I planted in a pot this week. (As of April 30, no signs of life yet. (in greenhouse)>

April 19 

My new Dazzling Magic orange Dahlia has good shoots and I have been pinching back the grow to get it to branch out. Put it in greenhouse April 19. 

None of the blue Morning Glory seeds germinated. Time to compost them as they are a few years old and if I remember correctly, they didn't germinate last year either. The mixed Morning Glory seeds I had planted on April 8 came up right away and are growing fast!~

Morning Glories April 22

Tomatoes, morning glory, small cosmos sprouts, spaghetti squashes and a firebird Dahlia

Canna Lily- dead root. Composted it.

8 old Gladiola bulbs overwintered- 4 grew roots quickly in the pan of water. and I planted them in soil in yogurt containers. (Two of the tiny ones grew roots as well and all 6 are all happily growing green leaves in the greenhouse as of April 29).

 When will my Vessey order arrive? I should call Vessey and find out when they are mailing it out. I really want the dahlia tubers and Glad bulbs soon to get them started. 

I  ordered some asiatic lilies too, but I guess I'll have to put them in a deck pot to start with if I want to see flowers this summer...

I also ordered a Snowball Bush, which I have always loved, but I have no clear idea where I will plant it yet or even what it will look like when it gets here... 

Sweet Peas

The first batch didn't germinate so I tried soaking some and planting a second bunch in pots (April 24) but so far nothing is up....

I seem to have such a hard time getting them to grow in pots, and it's not the first time! Last year I finally planted seeds straight out into the flower bed in May, but they took a long time to grow and finally bloomed well about September. I guess I should plant them into the rock garden bed this weekend as we have no evidence of frost for the next 10 days. Could always cover them if needed if they come up.  

OOPS! I see I accidentally planted the sweet peas in the pot with the Lupine seeds which I had replanted on April 22 and left on the kitchen bay window! And one Lupine seed had a root so it will be a mixture in that pot. (2 Lupines sprouted as of April 27- Yay! I will have to put them out into the Round Bed next week before they grow long tap roots. ) 

Cosmos babies and Zinnia seedlings

The first batch of Cosmos seeds were from ones I had harvested myself and a few did germinate, but they took a while and I got impatient and found a seed package of Cosmos from last year and started another batch. They are in the photo above. There are 4 bigger ones from the fist batch which have their 3rd set of leaves already about 4 -5 inches tall now. (April 28)

Spaghetti squashes from harvested seeds. There are also 3 butternut squashes that have sprouted from saved seeds

Spaghetti squashes need to be transplanted into individual bigger pots now as they are root bound together. There are 2 Super Sensation Tomatoes that need bigger pots as well.

The tiny Tumbler Tomatoes are growing, 2 are doing well and 1 is still pretty tiny. One of the Black Krim tomatoes is shovelling up but the other 2 Black Krims are doing fine.  They are heirloom tomatoes which are supposed to be sweeter than none heirloom, but they are not as disease resistant.

The green house has 54 pots in it now, 55 if you count the small try of Radish seeds that my gardening partner Chris has planted. 

We are radish challenged! Our soil and well water is so high in alkalinity and we can't get radishes to grow properly. If we plant them in bag soil and only water with rain water from the rain barrel they have half a chance of growing a decent edible root... 

Tomato seedlings

April 22 photo- Early Girl, Lemon Boy, Black Krim, 1 Beef Steak, a store bought Jubilee (yellow/ orange) and a bought cherry tomato

Next Post- rose bushes and more.