April 2026 Edible Garden Planner

April lettuce bed

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

April showers bring May flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables!  Now is the perfect time to get serious getting your spring garden planted and sown.  In April, I usually have seeds and plants going indoors and outdoors.  With all the selections they have at nurseries and big box stores, it is easy to skip this altogether and just buy plants to have an instant garden!

Crops to plant in April

Early April is a perfect time to plant cool season loving crops like Brussels sprouts, fava beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, collards, kale, lettuce, mustard, onions, parsley, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, strawberries, Swiss chard and turnips.  Local big box and nurseries have a variety available to put in your garden right now.  Outdoor transplant calendar

See this post for what to plant in April as well as links on how to grow each veggie.  What to plant in the April edible garden

We have fresh salads from the garden now.  The greens that overwintered are lettuce, sprouting broccoli, cress,  chickweed, sorrel, sweet mustard, chard, salad burnet, sorrel, blood veined sorrel and cultivated dandelions.  The other herbs that overwintered are celery, carrots, parsley, chives, Egyptian walking onions, oregano, tarragon, sage, onions, shallots, winter savory and thyme.  They are great adds to salads as well as cooked dishes.

There are many volunteers sprouting from giant mustard, lettuce, celery and chives.  These are the cool temperature lovers.  Next month, the warm season loving volunteer veggies and flowers will be sprouting.  Asparagus sprouts are large enough to harvest.  We'll definitely be having asparagus for our Easter dinner.

We can still get a surprise frost in April so you want to hold off on planting warm season crops outdoors like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans and squash until May unless you can cover them or can bring them indoors if frost does visit your garden.  Warm season lovers won't grow much anyway until the soil is nice and warm.  I usually start and move them outdoors in May for our Zone 7 garden.  If you want to see how early you can go, try using protection to keep them warm.  Extend the season with protection for plants

I have already transplanted petunias, Sweet William, marigolds, and lettuce plants outdoors.  I have lettuce in pots in my portable greenhouse that I can cover if we get a freeze.  A frost won't bother them.  I planted them outdoors last week. The extra warmth helped them grow quicker, but is not needed for the plants to survive this time of year.   

To keep yourself in lettuce all season, do succession planting of new seeds or plants every 2-3 weeks.  Just plant the number you would normally eat in a 2-3 week period.  This will keep salads on the table continuously.  Do succession planting for any vegetable you want to extend the harvest for.  Keep the harvest going, do succession planting

If this is your first year in gardening, here are some pointers on what to choose to grow and get your garden going: What to plant for your first garden  Easy kitchen garden   If you don't have much space you can still grow a garden either in pots or in a garden spot as little as 6' by 6' that can grow all the produce you can eat during the garden season. 

Veggies for small spaces

 Grow a Sicilian/Italian kitchen garden in as little as 6' x 6'

Small space French kitchen garden

To get a jump on summer harvests, I usually start a variety of edibles indoors on the kitchen counter in both my Aerogarden, peat pods or peat pots.  For the large seedlings like cucumber, squash, and watermelon, I start these in 3" peat pots.  I have had great success in the Aerogarden in germination rates for those that sprout quickly (3-14 days).  I have not had good luck for those that take 2-4 weeks to sprout.  Seed starting tips for beginners  You can get also get a jump on harvests by buying transplants.  There are a wide variety available nowadays, including heirlooms.

Aerogarden on the right, peat pods on the left
The varieties I like to start indoors: tomatoes, peppers, okra, rosemary, a variety of basils, dill, Alpine strawberries, eggplants, New Zealand spinach, Malabar spinach, blue morning glories, cucumbers, zucchini, butternut squash, watermelon, pole green beans, and any interesting varieties I just couldn't resist buying seed for over the winter.

Fertilize

When you plant, make sure to fertilize and add mycorrhizae in each planting hole. Mycorrhizae are beneficial microbes that help your plant roots absorb nutrients from the soil (once inoculated, you don't have to reapply).  Espoma Bio-Tone starter contains both mycorrhizae and fertilizer.   I also add biochar and worm castings in each hole.  I add minerals via Azomite every other year.  Using these amendments is when I had the most productive and disease free summer gardens.

I like to apply fertilizer, add a thick layer of compost and top with mulch before I even begin planting.  Just mulch by itself breaks down and adds organic matter to the soil.  I use only organic fertilizers and amendments.  There is a great deal of research that shows chemical fertilizers negatively affect the soil food web.  Mulch also does a great job of suppressing weeds.  Weed free, self fertilizing, till free garden beds

If you didn't do a soil test (you can use a kit from a garden store/big box store or have your local extension office analyze it), use a balanced organic fertilizer like Espoma at the rate recommended.  If you have regularly use a balanced fertilizer, nitrogen may be the only amendment you need.  

You can make your own all natural, organic fertilizer, too, inexpensively.  Here is the link:  Make your own fertilizer, it's all natural and inexpensive  If you did not fertilize the entire garden bed before planting, be sure to add fertilizer to each planting hole per the directions on the package.  Crops will need that burst of energy for the quick growth that spring brings. 

If you are re-using pots from last year, here is a link to get your potting soil ready to nourish your new plants:  Re-energize your potting soil!  It is important to get your potting soil so it can support this season's growth and veggie production.  Be sure when you fertilize to mix it into the soil or apply before you put down a protective organic layer of mulch.  This keeps the nitrogen from oxidizing and escaping into the air instead of staying in the ground to nourish your plant.  To re-energize my potting soil, I add 1 part compost to 2 parts potting soil, Azomite for minerals, and Espoma fertilizer.  

Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors

Chives and lettuce in  mid-April garden

Frost date importance

The average last frost date in our area is April 2nd this year, but we can still get a stray frost in all of April.  This is important to know for planting seeds and when to move plants into the garden.   Frost date look up  The seed packet tells you when to plant in relation to your last frost date.  You will get the best results following the packet instructions.  What do seed packets tell you?  Planting early is not always a good strategy as different seeds need different soil temperatures before they will germinate or grow.  Plant too early and the seed can rot before they have a chance to sprout.  When to plant your veggies

Pots will warm up quicker, but will also chill down faster.  You can put your pots in a sheltered, sunny spot to get a jump on spring growth.  Putting your pots on the south side of the house will provide the maximum warmth.  I love planting greens in a large self-watering pot that I can keep on the patio, making it handy for picking a fresh salad for dinner, and to move to a cooler spot in the hot days of summer.  

When growing veggies in containers, they will require more watering and more fertilizer than if they were in the ground.  In the summer, you may have to water some water lovers every day unless you use self-watering pots.  For more on growing in pots:  Decorative container gardening for edibles  
With the self-watering pots, your watering duties will be greatly reduced.

Lettuce, greens, and herbs do fabulous this month.  It is the time to indulge in daily salads and smoothies.  Cool temperatures and lots of moisture produce the sweetest greens of the season.  

Everything you need to know about growing lettuce  Grow your own smoothie and juice garden

This year, you may want to save money or just want to be sure you can eat fresh veggies.  Here is a garden that meets that need, even if you only have a small space, like a flower bed.  Small space survival edible garden  

Growing collards and kale 101

Potted kale, petunias and Egyptian walking onions

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Kale is not only beautiful, it is good for you!  Kale is chock full of antioxidants, beta carotene, lutein, vitamins C and K, and calcium.  It also contains compounds that are potent against cancer, sulforaphane and indole-3-carbinol.  Collards are a great source of vitamins A, C, K and folate. 

Kale was the first to be domesticated from the ancient cabbage family of plants.  The Celts were the first to cultivate these greens, causing the birth of kale, broccoli, cabbage, collards, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kohlrabi.  Thomas Jefferson’s favorite kale was a variety similar to a Siberian kale.  He also grew a variety similar to today's Tuscan kale, also known as dinosaur or black kale; a very striking plant to have in the garden with its long, dark blue-green and bumpy leaves.

Collards are a uniquely American vegetable that has always been associated with the South and appeared in the late 1700’s.  

Most kale and collards are biennial, but there are still perennial varieties if you can find the seed.  Perennial varieties include tree collards, walking stick kale, western front kale, Dorbenton kale, and sea kale.  

Dwarf blue curled kale

If you want to save seed from the biennial, you have to keep the plant through one winter, allow it to flower and produce seed.  Kales cross easily with other kales and collards so if you want true to type, grow only one kind in your garden.  Flowering kale have pretty yellow flowers and the bees love them!

There are many colors and textures of kales.  There are the “dinosaur” kales which have a blistered, black appearance, red kales, green kales, dwarf kales, green, red kales, and ornamental kales which are edible.  Some are more winter hardy than others.  Check seed packets for descriptors like "winter hardy" and "cold tolerant".  Those grown in the fall are sweetest if picked after a frost.  Fall garden planning and planting

Kale is generally a fall crop but can be cultivated in the spring.  Collards are typically planted in the spring in colder climes and can be planted in the fall in warm winter regions.  They can be started indoors or direct seeded in May (soil temp of 55-75 degrees F).  They prefer rich soil and should be kept moist until sprouted.  Sow seeds 1/4” deep and 4-6” apart, thin to 12”.  If planting rows, allow at least 18”.  I have also had great success raising them in a pot.  Since they are leafy greens, fertilize with nitrogen monthly during the growing season. 

Several varieties of kale come available as bedding plants in late March.  Since we live in Kentucky, there are always collards as well.  Both can be planted into beds and pots in our Zone 7 garden now.

For fall, plant around Independence Day (July 4th).  Kale can be grown in garden beds or pots.  It is very cold hardy and survives through most winters. 

You can harvest the outer leaves when they are 8-10” long for cooking or juicing.  You can also harvest the leaves when smaller for salads.  Store at 32 degrees and high humidity in the frig for the longest life.

One of the fun ways to prepare kale is to salt and dry in a dehydrator or low temp in the oven.  They can be eaten as you do chips, but are much healthier.  You can also eat the new leaves in salads or sauté or steam the larger leaves.  Dehydrate or sun dry your extra veggies

For any that I don't eat fresh, I blanche and freeze to add to a steamed veggie side dish or to soups.  You do need to blanche kale and other greens to maintain the tasted.  Freezing the extras for winter 

Growing onions 101

Bulbing onion flowering in late spring

Saturday, March 28, 2026

It is time to plant onion sets and onion transplants in the garden to get full size bulbs for harvesting this summer. 

You can order sets on-line, get them in big box stores, local nurseries, local farm supply stores and local hardware stores at this time of year.  Your local stores should have the type of onions that will bulb properly for your latitude.  Onions set bulbs based on the hours of daylight.

If ordering on-line, know what daylight zone you are in to get the ones that will develop into full bulbs for your zone.  They start forming bulbs when daylight hours hit a minimum. For long day onions, it is 14 hours. For intermediate, it is 12-13 hours. Short day onions are 9-10 hours.  You also need to get them planted this month to insure optimal size for harvesting.

 I would have thought that long day onions would be for the South, but this is wrong.  The North gets the really long summer days (think of Alaska in June with no darkness).  Long day onions should be planted in states north of the Oklahoma/Kansas border (approximately 36 degrees latitude).  Intermediate day onions are planted in the middle of the US and short day onions in the South (like Vidalias).

I live in Kentucky so right in the heart of intermediate day onions.  I can plant long day onions, but should have gotten them in the ground as soon as the soil could be worked last month so that get a good root system for making large bulbs when peak daylight occurs in late June.

This year, I bought sets from a big box store and started seeds of interesting intermediate types.  For sets, the bulbs need to be firm to still be viable.  I planted my sweet onion sets yesterday and will plant my seedlings in a couple of days.  I have the seedlings hardening off on the back patio to get used to the cooler temperatures and increasing time in unfiltered sunlight.

If ordering sets or plants on-line, they will send them to you when it is time to plant in your area.

Plant about 1" deep in soil rich with organic matter and well-drained, 6" apart for individual cloves or bulbs.  I already added the phosphorous and potassium my soil test said to add so I will put a handful of blood meal for nitrogen under each bulb at planting.  If you haven't done a soil test, you can add a balanced fertilizer in each hole as you plant.  In the spring, continue to side dress with nitrogen every 2-3 weeks when growing resumes.  If using blood meal, use 1 cup per 10 feet of planting.  Alliums prefer a soil pH of 6.5-7.

I plant potato onions, shallots and Egyptian walking onions in the fall to give them the winter to develop good root systems for harvesting this spring and summer.

For more on onions, see 

Onions-everything you need to know to grow 'em

Growing lettuce 101

Red sails lettuce and petunias

Sunday, March 22, 2026

Spring is prime time for salads!  Lettuce is its sweetest and most productive in spring and fall.  Lettuce loves cool temperatures, moisture and lots of nitrogen.  It is a super easy "vegetable" to grow from seed, too, and it self seeds.

When the hot weather sets in, lettuce will go from sweet and docile to bolting and bitter in a week.  For summer harvests, chose varieties that are heat resistant like Summer Crisp, Red Sails, Rouge d’Hiver, Freckles Romaine, Summertime Crisphead, Tomahawk, Butter King, and Loma French Crisp.

Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces

You can buy many different lettuce plants from nurseries or big box stores this time of year or, to keep yourself in lettuce all summer, practice succession planting and sow seed every 2-3 weeks.  Lettuce is super easy to grow from seed and there are so many varieties to choose from seeds.  I simply just scatter seeds on top of the soil and pat down either in the garden bed or pot.  Keep moist and you will have lettuce seedlings within a week.

Outdoor seed starting tips

Lettuce and all greens love nitrogen just like your lawn does.  We donate our nitrogen rich coffee grounds to our greens and garden beds.  I also use a liquid fertilizer (guano and sea kelp) or other organic fertilizer monthly.  

It is important to keep the lettuce from drying out.  They need consistent moisture.  It is when lettuce is stressed, either through hot temps or drying out, that they turn bitter and bolt.  This is one of the reasons that the Earthbox is such a good pot to grow lettuce.  It has a water reservoir in the bottom so weekly watering keeps the soil moist even in the hottest weather.  Any self-watering pot will work this way, even one you make yourself or buy a kit to transform a favorite pot into a self watering container.

Lettuce in an Earthbox, self watering pot

Bolting is simply when a stalk arises from the middle of the lettuce plant.  It then flowers and sets seed.  When the seeds start to dry, cut off the stalk and remove the seeds.  I put my seeds in a ziplock and store in the frig.  The seeds stay viable for 2-3 years this way.  Save the seeds from your favorites and re-sow to keep yourself in free, tasty lettuce all season long.  You can also let the seeds fall where they may and you will get volunteer lettuce plants throughout your garden.  As volunteers pop up, I move them to where I want them in the garden bed or pot.  

Bolted Red Sails lettuce-cool looking, eh?

Lettuce also does well from fall into winter.  Choose cold tolerant varieties for early spring and fall Fall and winter greens and heat tolerant varieties to sow in late spring and summer.  One thing to remember is that lettuce seed does not germinate well above 75 degrees so you may have to move your seed starting to the shade or indoors in the dog days of late summer. 

In early spring, lettuce likes full sun.  As it gets hotter, lettuce appreciates some shade.  Planting plants in late spring to provide shade for lettuce during the summer can prolong the harvest.

Protection from the afternoon sun helps in lengthening the time before your lettuce bolts.  There are few techniques you can use.  Grow lettuce interspersed with taller veggies to give them shade protection, plant next to a wall that provides afternoon shade, cover with a shade cloth to keep them cooler or grow on the north side of your house.  If growing in a pot, it is easy to just move the pot to a shadier, cooler spot when the temps start to rise.

Harvesting frequently also helps keep the lettuce from bolting.  Harvest the outer leaves consistently and the plant will continue to produce more inner leaves.  I harvest from the same plants for a couple of months this way.

Some, like the Marvel of Four Seasons and Red Sails, stay sweet even when they have bolted.  Give the bolted lettuces a taste to see if it is time to let them go to seed or yank them out to make room for another crop.

I like to grow heat tolerant greens during the summer in addition to lettuces to keep the summer salads going.  

Keep salads going all summer long  

Good companion plants for lettuce are beets, carrots, radishes, marigolds, onions, basil, and peas.  Root vegetables help loosen the soil.  Marigolds repel pests.  Basil can improve the taste of your lettuce.  Peas add nitrogen to the soil.  

Plants you should NOT plant next to lettuce are any that are in the Brassica family like cabbage, kale, and broccoli.  These plants put chemicals in the soil that lettuce plants don't like.  Celery, fennel and sunflowers also put chemicals in the soil that inhibits good growth of lettuce.  Be careful of planting anything next to lettuce that will overtake lettuce like mint, indeterminate tomatoes or vining plants.

Growing spinach 101

 

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Spinach is touted as one of the super foods and there are good reasons why.  Spinach is rich in antioxidants, folic acid, betaine, protein, omega-3, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, vitamin B2, vitamin B6, minerals manganese, iron, calcium, potassium, copper, phosphorous, zinc, and selenium.  

Spinach can be eaten raw, steamed, or sautéed.  A French favorite is creamed spinach.  Spinach contains oxalic acid which is eliminated when cooked.  Alternating between fresh and cooked is optimal.  It has been reported that spinach helps prevent osteoporosis, anemia, heart disease and cancers of the colon and prostate.  Natural News

Spinach was originally an Asian green and first cultivated in Persia (modern day Iran) in the 3rd century and brought to Europe via Spain by the Crusaders in the 11th century.  It was a favorite of Catherine de Medici from Florence, Italy.  She insisted every dish be served on a bed of greens.  Hence the term, “a’ la Florentine” for this style.

The smooth seeded spinach we grow today was known in the 1600’s.  Both the smooth and prickly seeded varieties were grown in the American colonies by the 1700’s.  The prickly seeded varieties are more prone to early bolting than the smooth seeded varieties.

Spinach loves well composted, moist soil and cool weather (below 70 degrees F).  Spinach will often over winter even in the northern states.  In southern states it is typically fall sown for spring harvests.

Seeds should be sown 1/2” deep, 3-6” apart.  Spinach is also happy to grow in pots.  Growing in pots also allow you to move the pot to a shadier, cooler area as temperatures rise, extending the harvest.

For spring harvests, plant in full sun to light shade in early spring (4-6 weeks before the last frost).  Seeds germinate in soil temperatures of 45-70 degrees F.  Spinach also transplants easily so can be started indoors or bought as transplants. 

Frost dates

Plant every 2 weeks or plant a variety with different maturity times (days to harvest) to have spinach into early summer.  Fertilize when the seedlings emerge.  Spinach enjoys even moisture.  This is especially important as temperatures begin to rise in late spring.    The later seeds I sow, I look for heat resistant types like America, Teton, Bloomsdale Longstanding, Space Olympia or Tyee to keep the harvest going as long as possible.  Spinach is ready to harvest 35-50 days.

If you harvest the outer leaves, the inner leaves will continue to grow, allowing you multiple harvests from each plant.

Most spinach will start to bolt when the temperatures reach 80F.  If you want to save seeds, allow the seed to dry on the plant before saving.  Refrigerate in air tight containers or bags.  I use plastic freezer bags to save space in the frig.

There are substitutes for spinach you can plant that love the heat of summer like New Zealand Spinach or Red Malabar Spinach.  Red Malabar is a very pretty vining plant with maroon stems.  They are great to grow just for their looks alone.  For more on summer salad greens:  Carefree summer salad greens

What's happening in the mid-March garden

Daffodils and hyacinth blooming, daylilies sprouting

Sunday, March 15, 2026

Spring in our garden came 2-3 weeks later this year with unseasonably frigid temperatures in February.  Daffodils, hyacinths, forsythias and Bradford pear trees are in full bloom.  Redbuds are beginning to bloom,  lilacs and roses just leaved out.  Peonies are just breaking ground.  Apple trees buds are just swelling.

When forsythias bloom, it is time to apply corn gluten for weed suppression in the garden and yard.  Corn gluten keeps seeds from sprouting and provides nitrogen.  It will also keep grass seed or garden seed from sprouting so use only where you don't want seeds to come up.

In the edible garden, onions, tarragon, garlic chives, garlic, carrots and spearmint are all coming up in the garden bed and pots.  Overwintering arugula, celery, winter cress, strawberry plants, raspberry plants, blackberry bushes, thyme and oregano are growing again.  Chickweed is flowering and growing vigorously.  The garden is giving greens for fresh picked salads.

I have been sowing cold season crop seeds outdoors for a while now.  I started in February with snow peas, lettuce and spinach in pots in the portable greenhouse.  I haven't seen any come up.  The soil could have been too wet and the seed rotted.  I've started lettuce and spinach indoors and those are up. I'll transplant from peat pellets to small pots in the next week.  When this next cold spell gets through and the weather looks safe from the 20's, I'll start hardening them off outdoors and transplant them. 

I'm hoping lettuce and spinach transplants will be available at the big box stores this weekend.  I like getting a couple 6 packs to get a jump on spring salads.

Peas and potatoes can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring.  I planted potatoes a couple of weeks ago.  The ones with long shoots are turning green so far, so good on them.

I have started other lettuce indoors that are heat resistant like Lunix, Solar Flare, Bronze Beauty, Royal Oak Leaf, Red Sails, Yedikule and Butter King.  Also started other summer salad greens in my Aerogarden system: Chinese pink celery, Hilton cabbage, Barese Swiss Chard, Japanese Mountain Spinach (a Swiss Chard), Chijimisai Greens, a fewamaranths, and mixed colors orach.  They are sprouting and the lettuce is ready to transplant into bigger pots.

I only started rosemary, papalo, and bushy sweet basil in the Aerogarden.  Parsley and celery overwintered and I'm hoping for volunteers of dill, cardinal basil, blue spice basil, and purple ball basil.  So far, my garden sage survived the winter along with the gold and green variety.  None of the tricolor sage survived.  I hope they survive this next dip into the 20's!  That's the killer for plants that are susceptible once there has been a warm up and then another cold snap.  It gets my rosemary almost every time.

Early March is an ideal time to mulch.  It's before the self-seeders are sprouting and it adds warmth to soil. I'm still working on gathering the seed heads from the marigolds, zinnias, cardinal basil, cockscomb and Jerusalem artichokes before mulching.  With the frigid temps moving back in tonight, it may be the first of April before adding compost, fertilizer and mulch to the beds.

For growing edibles, you can count on needing at least nitrogen addition unless you are doing nitrogen fixing cover crops.  I have tried a few different all natural nitrogen fertilizers.  Kelp adds a variety of minerals plus it has growth hormones in it so is a great choice for plants you want a lot of height for.  Many of the organic fertilizers use chicken manure as a main component.  We have chickens so I compost their bedding to use in the garden.  I use alfalfa meal and blood meal which are good sources of nitrogen for planting and adding to my greens during the growing season.  For all purpose organic fertilizer I use Espoma Garden-Tone or Re-Vita.

If you are creating new beds, put down cardboard first before fertilizing and mulching.  This added layer will keep the grass and weeds smothered while attracting earthworms.  Earthworms love cardboard!  They not only loosen the soil, but also fertilize it.  A real win-win. 

If you don't have a lot of time this year, transplants are always a great option.  Cool season crop transplants are at the local nurseries and big box stores in the next week or two.  They'll have broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onion sets, lettuce, strawberries, potato sets, boxed dormant fruit bushes and trees in the first arrivals.  They sit outside so they are already hardened off and ready to plant.

Overwintering cabbage and broccoli

The big box stores will also have herb transplants.  The ones that can be planted now are thyme, sage, garlic, parsley, and celery.  I'd hold off on the rosemary and especially the basil.  If it gets even close to freezing, basil can be killed in the garden.  You can buy and keep them in a sunny window in the garage and they should be fine.

Tomatoes and basil will be in the stores, too.  I'd wait on those.  Tomatoes, basil, peppers and eggplant all need warm days and warm soil to thrive.  A freeze can kill them.  I usually wait until May to plant these summer lovers.

Indoor seed starting week 2

Hydroponic seed starting system
Saturday, March 14, 2026 

Now is the time to get the jump on summer harvests and start the warm weather loving seeds indoors.  Here is what I started indoors in my second week of seed starting.

Summer greens-these are the greens I use for salad after lettuce has bolted in the summer.  Aurora mixed colors orach, Rose orach, Double purple orach, Golden Giant amaranth (for leaves and seeds), Beetroot amaranth, Callelo amaranth, Rainbow quinoa (leaves and seeds).

Flowers-Orange King zinnia, Blush hollyhock, Purple stardust, Baby Blue Bouquet eucalyptus, Baby Blue Eyes, Rainbow Loveliness dianthus, Amadeo coneflower, Bluebird Forget-Me-Not, Scarlet echinacea, Platinum Blue, Blue Queen Butterfly Pea Vine, Blue Camas, Raspberry Daiquiri agastache, Sky Dance salvia, Kiwi Blue honeywort, variegated cockscomb, Red Raven cockscomb, Dwarf Coral cockscomb, Copper Spotted petunia.

The large flowers are for the pots in front, the smaller flowers for the pots with edibles, the dwarf cockscomb for around the flower bed perimeter and the perennials for the spots that either had annuals last year or the perennials didn't make it.  I'll also supplement the border with marigolds because they are so cheery, they deter deer, and pollinators love them.

I'll start the larger seeds outdoors at the beginning of April like cucumber, squash, okra, pole beans, melons and flowers.  I still also have seeds to start at our Master Gardener Demonstration Garden when they share the list of varieties they would like to grow this season.