The trouble with April

Jill Severn

Photo by Anna Schlecht

Swallows – those amazing aerial acrobats – are back in town, and birds both large and small are carrying nesting materials in their beaks as they fly overhead.

Trillums are blooming at Priest Point Park (soon to be renamed Squaxin Park). Bigleaf maples are flowering. Tall cottonwoods’ buds have burst, and the slightest breeze delivers their scent. That may cause a delightful experience called synesthesia – perceiving a color as you inhale a smell. The cottonwoods’ color/smell is a lovely pale green.

In town, flowering trees are already starting to let loose blossom rain on cars and streets. Fragrant, all-white star magnolias and the bigger, pinker magnolia trees are breathtaking. A friend swears that forsythia shrubs are a brighter yellow than ever this spring.

But this is the trouble with April: The woods, fields, prairies and streetscapes draw us away from home to witness spring’s ecstatic revival. But right now our gardens plead for our undivided attention. What is a nature-loving gardener to do?

Spring can make a gardener a little compulsive. There were a few days last week when I felt the need to do everything that needs to be done in the garden without delay. But after inhaling that cottonwood scent, I’ve calmed down a bit.

Now my new month’s resolution is to maybe spend time in the garden in the morning, and the woods in the evening, and to remember that we have the luxury of light so much later in the day. (I just realized that putting a “maybe” in a resolution is dicey, but there it is.)

So here are just a few to-do or not-to-do listings for the garden in April:

Border patrol

If you have fence lines – and especially if you have neighbors with morning glories, buttercups and other trespassing vagrants – border patrol is an early spring must. It’s not enough to nip them in the bud; you need to rip them out by the roots. Now, when the soil is soft and damp, is the best time to do this.

Move perennials around

It’s time to dig up, divide, thin and move perennials. In fact, if you were really organized, you probably did this in March.

Plant the frost-tolerant stuff first

 Now’s the time to plant early crops like spinach, lettuce, radishes, onions and arugula. If you want some almost instant gratification, start with radish and/or arugula seeds, which come up in three or four days. It takes lettuce and spinach a week or ten days to come up, and don’t forget slugs will be lurking around waiting for them. Be prepared to stand your ground.

In the flower garden – or as a border in a vegetable garden – April is also a good time to plant the frost-hardy and fragrant sweet alyssum, which comes easily from seed. And while you’re looking at the seed rack, you might want to scan for other flower seeds that are frost tolerant.

Plan for succession

Lettuce and spinach planted now will mostly be eaten by the end of June – especially if the weather gets hot. Once they’ve been harvested, what will you plant in the newly unoccupied space? My second round of planting includes kale, collard greens, rainbow chard, green beans and broccoli. All of them will produce fine crops if planted even in the middle of July.

The kale, chard and collards will last through the winter – even when it snows. Some people let their kale flower and go to seed in the spring. Bunches of kale stocks and flowers are sold now at the Farmers Market. Someone must like them; maybe it’s you.

Plan to plant all summer

I read a book once whose author said we should plant something every day until the 4^th of July, and can, dry or freeze something every day from the 4^th of July until October. Ha! Some of us have jobs, lady. And some of us are just not that ambitious.

But it’s true that you could plant something every day until midsummer or beyond. Take cilantro, for instance. Cilantro grows fast, then bolts and goes to seed when quite young. It’s best before that happens. Ideally, it would make sense to poke five seeds (the seeds are actually coriander) into the ground once a week for the next three or four months.

Get ready for May

Most things that can be done in April can also be done in May. And some things – like planting tomatoes and anything else that’s not frost-tolerant – can’t be done until then anyway.

So relax and enjoy this glorious month, both in the wider world and in your garden.

Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at  jill@theJOLTnews.com