April in Garden: Variety is the Spice of Life

April is one of the two best months of the year for planting in the garden (October is the other one).  Now is the time to be thinking ahead for summer.  If you like to plant seeds, beans, beets, carrots, chard, corn, cucumbers, edamame, eggplants, herbs, leaf lettuce, melons, peppers and chilies, potatoes, radishes, summer squash, sunflowers, tomatillos and tomatoes can all be planted now. Flower seeds to sow now are alyssum, cosmos, nasturtium, verbena, and vinca.  If you have a shady garden, besides impatiens, bedding begonias, coleus and forget-me-nots will also do well.

Of course, you can buy seedlings for most of these but just think how cool it is to put seeds in the ground now and watch them grow into mature plants as spring develops into summer.

April is also when the garden tours begin.  The San Diego Horticultural Society starts the season off with their spring garden tour, “Variety is the Spice of Life. . . and Gardens,” on Saturday, April 6 from 9a to 4p.  For details and tickets, go to www.sdhort.org

I recently visited the reopened farmers market held at Canyon Crest Academy on Thursday afternoons from 2:30 until dusk.  It is still rather small but there was a good variety of citrus and veggies, good things to eat, olive oil, eggs, etc.  I bought some herb seedlings (three for $5) and some Cara Cara oranges and tangelos.  Here is a hint if you go early, though.  If you can, park on the street rather than in the school parking lot.  Reason is that school gets out around 3p, which makes getting out of the parking lot time-consuming and difficult; much better to go after about 3:15.  That’s all for now.  It’s time to go play in the garden.
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Stevie Hall is President of Gardeners 92130, a 501(c)(3) non-profit garden club affiliated with California Garden Clubs, Inc.  “I am a California native, born in Santa Monica.  My husband, Ned Hall, and I  moved back to California from Connecticut in 1987, living first in Rancho Santa Fe, then Solana Beach and, in 2000, moved to the St. Augustine section of Torrey Hills.  My very first interest in having a garden and my very first garden was when we moved to our home in Torrey Hills.  Along the way I’ve become a certified consulting Rosarian and belong to three rose societies.  My rose obsession began to wane a few years ago as I’ve become more and more interested in growing fruit, vegetables, herbs and now succulents.  I am an obsessive reader and whenever a new gardening idea begins to beckon me, I head to the (Solana Beach) library for whatever books they have on the subject.  I am eager for every growing season.  The thing about a garden is that plants just want to grow and if they get the food and water they need, the possibilities are infinite.  Just thinking about it makes me want to get outside and get my hands in the dirt.”