End of April Seedlings, Ontario

April looks like its ending on a cooler note than was expected. All of that heat in March led me to believe it might be an earlier spring but don’t plant anything tender outside yet. 

Fortunately this cooler weather means I should get a good, long show with my tulips; unlike the crocuses that seemed to disappear in a week because of that unseasonably early heat. 

It also means that any cool weather seeds I haven’t yet planted will be just fine if I can get them out in the next day or two. As long as my body cooperates. 

What does the end of April look like for us here?

The last seeds for the cool weather flower cues are the beets.

They were supposed to be planted when the daffodils start to bloom but it looks like it will be more around the time they finish blooming. We’re planting two varieties we absolutely loved last year - Touchstone Gold, my personal favourite beet of all time, and Detroit Dark Red, which makes an incredible Rosemary Beet Jam (so delicious on roast beef sandwiches with Dijon mustard). 

Next up in the Phenology Planting will be when apple trees start to blossom. That’s our cue for bush beans and sunflowers. 

I’ve trimmed the Rosemary cuttings that I rooted and then planted. 

This will help them to get nice and bushy and put equal energy into root and new growth. 

The smell lingering on my fingertips is one of the most glorious! 

Dried rosemary in packets from the store is quite disgusting; it has the texture of and tastes and smells like old pine needles decomposing on the forest floor. 

Fresh rosemary has this ephemeral sweetness that just can’t be enjoyed any other way than by plucking sprigs off a live plant. 

Do yourself a favour - grow your own rosemary! It’s the only way. 

The peppers have been potted up to the largest that I have, or am willing to buy, and so they are preparing to get hardened off to place out on the deck or in other locations throughout the potager. 

I had them out when it was so warm outside and they loved it, I’m getting all sorts of beautiful blooms so we’ll see how quickly they start to set fruit. 

These last few days have been too cool for them to be happy so they’re sheltering in the house until it warms back up again. I’ll have to continue to bring them at night if it gets too cold or if we have a frost warning, but by June they should be outside plants for the summer. 

The Black Hungarian have the most beautiful purple-tinged blooms, I’m really looking forward to seeing what they taste like. Which is a rather funny English expression, no? Seeing what they taste like. What’s the word for taste like ‘seeing’? I suppose just ‘tasting them’ - ‘I’m really looking forward to tasting them’? Strange, strange. 

Funny pepper side note: My lemon peppers were so floppity I was sure that I had done something wrong - too much water, too much direct sunlight, they just weren’t ready for the big, wide world - until I remembered that they are actually a vine. 

So I pruned my one hydrangea of some of its very straight, new growth and made a little tripod for them to climb. 

If you remember the Lemon Pepper writeup, these peppers can be perennial, even here, if you bring them inside over winter. I’m assuming that eventually I’ll have to get a bigger pot if I’m going to do that, but we’ll try this summer out and bring them in the fall and see how they over-winter. If I can keep them alive, how cool would that be?

My scientific inquiry with the Pepper Project: Planting, seems to indicate that the beginning of March is the right size we’re looking for to plant at the end of May/beginning of June.

The potted up Basil (see information on each variety planted here) is humming along and getting bigger and bigger leaves. Oh the glories of summer herbs! I can’t wait! So many of our herbs are perennials that just keep coming back in the garden. Basil is really the only one we have to replant each year. I think my oregano may not have survived, at the beginning of the year it looked ok, but when I last checked there were no green leaves on it so we may have to plant some more. 

The tomatoes are all getting bigger and I have only a few more of the starter cells to pot up and then we have all of our tomatoes.

Other than that, it looks like the only seeds to be started indoors from now on will be flower seeds, or vegetables to replace any that didn’t germinate etc. 

Now the vegetables will be sown directly into the garden. About the only thing I can think of are fall transplants that I'll start in the middle of June to beginning of July to transplant out for fall harvests. Oh and squash can be started inside a couple weeks before the last frost if you want to plant out starts instead of seeds. This year I may direct sow them so I don’t have to worry about hardening off at all. 

So many options, so many plans, only so many hours in the day.

How is your planting going?