What's happening in the mid-April garden

Egyptian walking onions

Sunday, April 12, 2026

I have been busy seed starting, putting transplants in the garden and pots, watering and fertilizing! I plant a combination of herbs, fruits, vegetables and flowers every year.  The flowers attract pollinators that help the fruiting plants like tomatoes and peppers to produce more as well as just looking good.

Status of our garden

We have fertilized, composted, mulched and added sulfur to all our flower/edible beds.  Wood mulch increases pH of garden soil so we add sulfur to keep it in the range that edibles grow the best in which is around 6-7.

We didn't have many weeds that needed to be pulled before we mulched the garden bed last month so I have been busy planting flowers and other transplants.  We have onions, shallots, garlic, Egyptian walking onions, chard, sorrel, arugula, carrots, celery, lettuce, cultivated dandelions, parsley and plantain that overwintered and are going strong right now.  I use the bottoms of the walking onions in cooking and the tops like chives.  The greens I use in salads and also as wilted greens.

My rosemary did not make it in the garden over the winter.  It always makes it into January, then we have a big warm up and another deep freeze and that gets it almost every year.  One of 3 tricolor sage plants survived and a couple of the green and gold a a few of the garden sages so I will have plenty of sage plants this year.  Thyme, oregano, tarragon, celery, pea shoots, garlic chives, parsley, garden chives, a few of my sage plants overwintered greens all are green and ready to use.  I can have many basil volunteers so I am waiting to see if they come up or if I need to start some from seed.  I use basil as a companion plant to tomatoes and for pesto that I freeze for year round eating.  Start a kitchen herb garden!

The bay, pepper plants, lemon, tamarillo and moringa tree I overwintered in the basement are adding leaves.  The pepper, lemon and tamarillo plants are full of flowers and baby fruits.  I moved them all outdoors a couple of weeks as the extended forecast has the night time lows staying at least in the 50's.  They should be fine unless it gets below 28F.  Our average last frost date was April 2 so we should be well out of frost/freeze danger.  

The lettuce plants I started indoors in February and transplanted into pots are looking good.  I also bought one 6 pack of Red Romaine lettuce and transplanted them into a pot, too.  Have plenty of greens for daily salads.  Growing fabulous lettuce and greens

I dug up the volunteer garlic chives and parsley and re-potted to give to the local master gardeners for their annual plant sale.  They are both winter hardy and prolific self-seeders.  My best performing self seeding edibles

April and May are fun to watch to see what volunteers will come back from last year's seed.  I will likely have marigolds, tomatoes, chives, squash, and lettuce plants pop up yet this spring as the soil warms.  Looks like I have plenty of Snow on the Mountain, zinnias, and flame cockscomb flowers coming up already.  I'll thin them out and move the extras to the steep bank by the road.  It's tough to mow so adding self-seeding flowers will make it pretty instead of just scraggly looking.  Try self-seeding veggies and flowers

I took a look in the freezer and pantry to see what we were running short on to develop my garden plan for this year.  My 2026 Decorative and Edible Garden Plan   I'll take one more look at the end of the month to fine tune how many squash, melon and cucumber seeds I'll need to plant.   A summer edible garden   The old timers around here say to wait until Mother's Day to plant out the frost tender annuals like squash, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes.  They don't grow until the soil is warm anyway so waiting doesn't delay harvest.

I think I'll also try to go to the farmers market more this year to see if there are other fruits or veggies that do well in this area to add to the garden.  We have a couple that are close by that starts up in early June.  You can find a farmers market near you through this web site.  www.localharvest.org