Planting April 2021 Planting and Chat Thread

[packyderms_wife]

Planting Calendar - Gardening by the moon

This planting calendar helps you pick the best days for gardening tasks based a 200-year-old formula. Our readers swear by it! Learn more.

www.farmersalmanac.com

• 1st – 2nd
  Neither plant nor sow on these barren days.
• 3rd – 4th
  Favorable days for planting beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, onions, and other root crops.
• 5th – 6th
  Excellent time to kill weeds, briars, poison ivy, and other plant pests.
• 7th – 9th
  Set strawberry plants. Excellent for any vine crops, such as beans, peas, and cucumbers. Good days for transplanting. Favorable days for planting root crops.
• 10th – 11th
  Poor planting days. Break ground or cultivate.
• 12th – 14th
  Favorable for planting beans, corn, cotton, tomatoes, peppers, and other aboveground crops.
• 15th – 16th
  Poor days for planting, seeds tend to rot in ground.
• 17th – 19th
  Plant seedbeds and start flower gardens. Plant tomatoes, beans, peppers, corn, cotton, and other aboveground crops on these most fruitful days.
• 20th – 23rd
  Grub out weeds, briars, and other plant pests.
• 24th – 25th
  A favorable time for sowing grains, hay, and fodder crops. Plant flowers. Plant corn, melons, squash, tomatoes, and other aboveground crops.
• 26th – 27th
  Start seedbeds. Good days for transplanting. Good days for planting beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, peanuts, and other root crops. Also good for leafy vegetables.
• 28th – 29th
  Neither plant nor sow on these barren days.
• 30th – 30th
  Favorable day for planting beets, carrots, turnips, radishes, onions, and other root crops.

 

[Murt]

Well
I was sent home from work today for testing positive for the fauci flu
So I got started planting the garden
I already have the onions --potatoes-tomatoes-peppers and a few squash planted
today I plowed the rest of the garden and laid out the rows for the rest
today I planted
3 rows of okra--5 different varieties
1 row of running butterbeans
1 row of sting beans
2 rows of sweet corn
tomorrow will be melons and root crops

My rows are about 75 feet long

 

[packyderms_wife]

I planted a bunch of seeds last Sunday and I have lots of seedlings up, including baby onions!

 

[seraphima]

My two tomatoes are up and growing, and the parsley germinated well, and fast, too. I had planted some 2017 parsley seed and it failed to germinate, so this current batch is 2021 and did fine. Most of my veggies won't be planted until after April 15, since they can't go out until at least the second week of May or later.
I bought seed potatoes last year, so this year saved my own since it will be clean. Every year draw a diagram of where each crop is going so that the soil stays clean and I don't have to remember what the rotation was. This allows for my own garlic cloves and potatoes for seed and saves a lot of money and corrective exertion.
Whopped down most of a big bush on the southwest of the house, so this should give me more warm garden area to play with this year. Looking forward to it!

 

[TerriHaute]

I've been busy transplanting tomato, celery, and pepper seedlings in the greenhouse. Have some zinnias and alyssum started for bedding plants too. Outside in the raised beds, there are lettuce, spinach, cilantro volunteers, and peas growing. I also planted some leeks, the first time to try growing those for me. If we get enough dry days in a row, we'll be tilling the garden pretty soon.

 

[shortstop]

I look to do some planting next week. We had rain the past few days which is needed and very nice. I'm looking forward to being in the garden. This weekend I'll get chicken wire to keep those bunnies out!

 

[Murt]

I just checked and I have my first baby tomato ---it's a about the size of a marble
I try every year to get a ripe tomato before the first of June

 

[seraphima]

I just checked and I have my first baby tomato ---it's a about the size of a marble
I try every year to get a ripe tomato before the first of June

Gosh, I'm lucky if I get a tomato by August! Alaska is different.

 

[WanderLore]

All cold weather stuff is in plus some flowers and bulbs. Wait and see. And yes on the schematic. Helps a lot

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I just planted 50 feet of climbing purple string beans along a special fence I built just for growing climber beans. Then, I come on this thread, and find out that today is a bad day to plant bean seeds (according to moon planting calendar).

I thought I still had one day left to plant those beans when I put them out - I do respect the idea of planting by the moon.

The OP says that seeds planted into the ground on April 15 tend to rot in the ground. I sure hope that is wrong. I just put about $25 worth of seeds into the ground today. And I just looked it up - each packet of seeds is about $1 higher than a few months ago when I bought the seeds I planted this afternoon. Seeds are expensive this year!

It will be expensive to replace the seed I planted today - if I must do so. So I hope they will be OK.

 

[TerriHaute]

Planted the celery seedlings outside in one of the raised beds, and also some cabbage seedlings this week. I started yellow Spanish and Ailsa Craig onions in the greenhouse and have also been working on getting those transplanted outside. The sugar snap peas are about 6 inches tall and the lettuce is finally starting to take off.

We are still getting temperatures in the 30's some nights, so it's too soon to put out anything more tender. I am in zone 5b and use Mother's Day as the reference point where I feel comfortable planting everything outside after that date. Got fooled on that last year for the first time ever - we had a hard freeze after Mother's Day and I had to replant all my tomatoes, even though I had covered them.

 

[packyderms_wife]

I just planted 50 feet of climbing purple string beans along a special fence I built just for growing climber beans. Then, I come on this thread, and find out that today is a bad day to plant bean seeds (according to moon planting calendar).

I thought I still had one day left to plant those beans when I put them out - I do respect the idea of planting by the moon.

The OP says that seeds planted into the ground on April 15 tend to rot in the ground. I sure hope that is wrong. I just put about $25 worth of seeds into the ground today. And I just looked it up - each packet of seeds is about $1 higher than a few months ago when I bought the seeds I planted this afternoon. Seeds are expensive this year!

It will be expensive to replace the seed I planted today - if I must do so. So I hope they will be OK.

If I planted only by the chart above I'd never get anything planted, seems like good days here are actually days when the weather is bad here.

 

[Faroe]

Have a collection of lettuce and kale in hydro jars that need to be harvested. Have not planted anything since, and it is time to catch up. Pulled out the 6 foot long cages that I use to keep birds and squirrles off the seedlings. Had fancy rats living in them (consolidation, and some culling . One had a huge tumor that she was living fine with, but it opened up, so it was time...)

Now that the puppy has mostly settled in, and I don't have to watch him like a hawk for chewing/floor peeing, I have some time for projects. Received a bunch of fish in for the fifty and hundred gallon tubs, right when the cold spell hit. They are AZ and AR raised, and they sulked over the chill. Brought in the weather loaches. I was afraid between the shipping stress, and the not eating due to cold, that they would weaken and get sick. Everyone ok now. The loaches are gorgeous - basically golden ribbons, with social and curious ratty personalities. I don't know why they aren't more popular. (Outdoor fish tubs count as part of the garden, because they make watering the dirted plants easier.)

Will start up hydro jars in the six-foot cages this week. Have a couple of spare heat mats from the vivs now that it is warmer, and can start the tomato, basil, and pepper seeds. Also need to make more floating beds - the ones I had from two years ago got re-purposed for vivs.

 

[Murt]

If I planted only by the chart above I'd never get anything planted, seems like good days here are actually days when the weather is bad here.

That's me --I would like to plant by the moon phases one year and see what happens
But
I work a "regular" job so I plant when the ground is dry enough and I have the time
some years I get the garden in early and some years not so depends on the weather
I try to get an early start to beat the heat here in Ga---after the end of June most years it starts getting so hot that some things just don't want to grow anymore

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I planted those bean seeds about 10 days ago.

FINALLY, today, I am seeing their little “heads” popping up out of the ground. Guess we might just have purple string beans this year, after all.

The really cold nights are playing havoc on my summer squash that I planted two weeks ago...


Nights got down as low as 30 degrees one night, and have been in mid- 40s last couple of nights. I have been covering the summer plants at night...

 

[seraphima]

Finally got a raised bed of onion sets planted today. This is two weeks later than last year! We are having a very late spring; I keep track of when the ice goes off the lake, when the swans come and leave, when the soil defrosts, etc. and this is the latest for all those. Even our coldest winter recently, in 2017, the ice melted 3 days earier than this year, and the soil defrosted several days earlier. Brrr.