April showers bring May flowers is the old saying, but April here in Pennsylvania turned out to be a rollercoaster. We had typical April days, winter days, and summer days. All had an impact on the garden and our plans.
Planting the Raised Beds with Cool Season Crops
I had mentioned in my Spring is Coming! blog about the seeds I started back in February to start in our new raised bed gardens. The brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale and cauliflower) as cold season vegetables, were ready to plant. After hardening them off – bringing them outside for a few hours each day, they were ready.
In late March we sowed Mizuna greens, two types of radishes, two types of carrots, beets, and purple snap peas in one of the beds. We also transplanted some strawberry roots and bunching onions which we had started from seeds indoors over the winter.
In early April we saw the first seedlings of the Mizuna greens after having some beautifully warm weather.
Despite growing cold season crops, we took precautions when a hard frost was expected in our area. We covered both beds with frost cloth and secured it with some rocks.
After the cold spell, we had another few incredibly warm days. The seedlings were popping. In this photo you can clearly see the rows of carrots, radishes, peas and beets. With the Mizuna greens getting ready to start harvesting.
The brassicas also made a lot of progress in just those two weeks. You can now clearly distinguish the kale (center of the bed) from the other vegetables from it’s darker and longer leaves.
Chancing our Luck with Summer plants
A few days later we transplanted the bush beans that we had been growing inside. That was more of an experiment to see what would grow and yield produce. We harvested a few beans but the plants needed more space. Some very mild weather was predicted for the upcoming weekend so we chanced putting them out.
A new edition to our raised bed garden is the Vego Garden Tool box. This has made those quick garden tasks so much easier by allowing us to keep essentials right in the garden such as gloves, trowel, garden twine etc.
By this time last year we had already purchased all of our summer vegetables and planted them and were feeling like we were behind. The soil temperature read 55-60 degrees on one of the cooler days so we decided we could plant and seed some more.
We transplanted our very weak and not happy tomato seedlings, and sowed yellow and black zucchini squash. We’re not entirely sure what went wrong with our tomatoes, but think they dampened off. We used coconut coir which doesn’t have much nutrition, and even though we supplemented with liquid fertilizer, we think that may have played a roll. After we repotted the tomatoes in regular potting soil, they did seem to recover some. We’ll see how they do in the garden, but are willing to purchase some tomato plants if these don’t grow.
Addition of Fruit Trees
In mid April, we went crazy and decided we wanted to add some fruit trees to our property. We purchased a Red Haven Peach, a Granny Smith and a Fuji apple tree. Two apple trees are needed in order to provide cross pollination. The trees were already full of blossoms which was great, except another cold spell was expected. We decided not to cover the trees, and let nature do it’s thing. Given this is their first year, we aren’t expecting much fruit and would prefer the trees put their energy into root development. Since the trees are somewhat protected by the larger tree canopy, they may have avoided any frost damage. But we’ll wait to see.
To protect the trees from deer, we installed 6ft wire fence around the individual trees since these were planted outside of our main fenced vegetable garden area.
Potatoes
Back in March we planted the potato chits. Each red potato had two or three spouts, so we split the potatoes so each part had at least one strong eye. We placed 3-4 in each grow bag with fertilizer and covered with about 4 inches of soil. After about 2 weeks the potatoes were sprouting with lots of green healthy growth. You can see the 20 gallon grow bags were filled only 2/3 full of soil to allow them to be hilled once the growth reached 6-8 inches.
Just four days later you can see how much these have grown. One the growth reaches the top of the bags we’ll add more soil. We had also be careful to cover the potatoes whenever there was a predicted frost as the leaves are susceptible to frost damage.
Stawberries
Currently, we have three different areas where strawberries are growing on our garden. One set is in a container on our patio, which we have had for years. These come back every year and are very healthy. Over the years, we had taken the runners and planted them in directly in the ground in our vegetable garden.
Earlier this year, in order to make space for our new raised beds, we had to move them. We transplanted them into an old wooden raised bad at the other side of our property. Despite the trauma of moving them, and the somewhat shadier spot, they were doing fantastic. That is until a rabbit came by and decimated them. That was our mistake. Normally we would cover the strawberries and the pot with bird netting, but we were too late.
Thankfully strawberries are fairly resilient and have shown some more growth. But as I said, April was a rollercoaster. Here comes the unexpected frost. We read on the news that our local farm had been devasted by the unexpected frost coming after 3 consecutive days in the 80s-90s. Blossoms were blooming everywhere, including the strawberries.
We honestly were not aware that frosts could impact strawberries – they are perennials after all and survive the harshest winters. But after reading about the impact locally, we checked and did notice some black spots on the yellow centers of the flowers, indicating that they did get frost damage. We picked off the damaged flowers and covered the strawberries on the next anticipated frost.
This is what is so fascinating about gardening. You can always learn something new and despite every effort, nature will dictate the rules!
For a full list of everything we are planting in our 2026 garden, check out this page.
