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Garden Tasks For April

Apr 11, 2017

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By Paul McCollum

Slugs

April To-Do List for Zone 9

If slugs and snails are decimating your plants, collect them in the evening, when you're most likely to spot them. They make good snacks for hungry chickens!
Plant pumpkins, summer squash, melons, and other vegetables that thrive in heat.
Every 2 weeks from now until late summer, plant small blocks of bush beans and sweet corn to extend the harvest until frost.
Thin fruits on fruit trees to increase their size and keep branches from breaking.
Plant summer bedding plants, such as petunias, lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum), wax begonias, and impatiens.
Sow seeds of nasturtiums, marigolds, portulaca, amaranth, salvias, vinca (Catharanthus roseus), sunflowers, and zinnias.
Plant perennials like ornamental alliums, bellflowers (Campanula spp.), daisies, yarrow, daylilies, coreopsis, penstemon, perennial geraniums (Geranium spp.), iris, and statice.

Strawflowers

April To-Do List for Zone 10

Plant perennials so they can settle in before the summer heat arrives; give them plenty of water.
Plant heat-loving bedding plants, such as vinca (Catharanthus roseus), strawflowers (Helichrysum bracteatum), blanket flowers (Gaillardia spp.), and gazanias.
Plant roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), amaranth, and Malabar spinach (Basella alba) now through August; make sure you give the Malabar spinach some shade and extra water.
Try some tropical edibles: Buy malanga, gingerroot, and others at the market. Cut them into pieces at least 1⁄2 inch long, and plant. Harvest from October through December.
Trellis tropical cucurbits (luffa, chayote, Tahitian squash, and so on) on a fence, and reap the rewards this fall.

Source: ucanr.edu

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