Laura’s Garden Notes – April is the last month to plant many crops

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Space in the Garden: Last month I did indeed expand my home garden as planned to make room for more goodness to come. I'm experimenting this year with trench composting, and so far so good. I wasn't making the best use of compost when our “pile” was out-of-sight some distance from the garden, and a quick search revealed lots of composting options. The trench approach gives me hope that the garden will get full benefit of decomposing organic matter without me having to move it from somewhere else into the garden. Here's how it works. The space between each row in my garden may look on the surface like just a bit of mulch, but for about a foot down underneath that there are actually layers of kitchen scraps, dry cow manure and dry leaves. The next-to-top layer is an inch or two of garden soil, topped off with a final layer of leaf mulch. With this method, composted matter is immediately available to whatever is growing beside it. I gradually implemented this method, digging about 10 feet of trench at a time, and when that was full and covered, digging another 10-foot trench. I was amazed at how quickly it has gone! If you'd like to give this method a try, take a look at the Farmer's Almanac website and search it with the key word “trench composting.”
What's Coming Along: The tomatoes I planted last month are blooming but aren't tall enough yet to need support. I interspersed each tomato plant along a wire fence with snap peas, and those are blooming also and starting to climb. Banana pepper plants are looking good and starting to bud up. Zucchini seeds are sprouting, and I'm waiting for sunflower and zinnia shoots to emerge from the soil. A bit late, I set up some large containers with seed potatoes and hope they'll do their thing anyway.
Eatin' in April: I've been harvesting “dragon” kale, collards, Swiss chard and green onions regularly, but the star of the garden right now is the lettuce! The mixed pack of seeds that I planted directly in the garden more than a month ago now fill our salad bowls with good-sized, tasty oak leaf, red leaf, green leaf and purple romaine. I've also let some amaranth “weeds” that sprouted along with them stay and grow, and they make a nice addition to the toss as well. The greens have really been thriving through the cold snaps, drenching rains and foggy mornings. It's been nice not having to irrigate too often.
What to Plant This Month: If you didn't get cantaloupes, beans, corn, field peas, peanuts or okra planted in March, they can still be planted in April. New options for edibles to plant in April in North Florida, according to the handy UF/IFAS Chart available at gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu and other sources, include transplants of ginger, tomatillo, tomatoes, boniato, calabaza, sweet potatoes, eggplant, peppers, papaya and passionfruit, as well as seeds for chayote, cucumbers, various squashes, mustard greens, watermelon and pumpkins. Note that April is the last month to plant tomatoes, beans, corn, turnips, cucumbers, pumpkins/squash, collards and peppers.
Strategies for Saving Space: If your vegetable garden space is filling up, like mine, there are many ways to make the most of the space you have, including “edible landscaping,” companion planting and choosing high-yield producers. First, consider other places around the yard with edible landscaping in mind. Some veggie plants have foliage and blooms that can be a great addition to places you might not have thought of for them. For example, try planting bush bean seeds in place of a flower you typically put in at this time of year. Add a narrow bed along a chain link fence for climbing plants like cucumbers, vining field peas and gourds. Another space-saving strategy is to co-plant crops, such as the “three sisters” of corn, squash and pole beans. The pole beans will use the corn stalks as support (and you don’t have to build supports) and the shared space will allow a higher yield for smaller gardens, with the squash and beans also adding nitrogen to the soil that the corn needs in high amounts. Finally, choose efficient producers, like turnips and eggplant. Turnips give a high yield of both greens and root vegetable in the same space. Eggplant can produce five times as much edible goodness in the same space as peppers do! It can be fried, stewed, boiled, eaten raw, is rich in fiber, can substitute for meat and is the star ingredient in many traditional favorites around the world, like ratatouille, Parmesan and moussaka.