As T.S. Eliot wrote, “April is the cruellest month.”  When we were all set for a pleasant spring, the cold returned.  My tulips just stopped where they were and waited out the weather.  The crocuses on my north side stayed hidden and are just now popping open.

April, the beginning of our outdoor gardening year, comes with many chores.  Here are some of the things you might find time to do this month.

• House plants will begin to actively grow this month.  It’s a good time to begin feeding them on a monthly basis – or weakly weekly. 
• As soon as the soil had thawed you can begin to lift and divide perennials.  Leave spring-blooming perennials until after they have bloomed.
• Add corn gluten meal to your lawn for a quick nitrogen boost.  Don’t sow grass at the same time as you spread corn gluten meal.  It inhibits the germination of seeds – a good thing for weed seeds but a bad thing for grass seed.
• Plant new trees and shrubs
• Tidy up trees by pruning out dead and wayward branches. Give shrubs new life by pruning out older branches.
• Start preparing vegetable beds as soon as the soil can be worked.  Don’t jump the gun, however, and work soil before it dries out somewhat.  Working wet soil absolutely ruins the soil texture.
• Continue to sow seeds indoors.  Six weeks before planting outside is a good rule of thumb. 

Pollinator Patches

"Be the change you want to see in the world." When Mahatma Ghandi said that he must have been thinking about Pollinator Patches. You can make a difference in your world next spring by creating a Pollinator Patch -- a habitat for native bees. In fact, why not start this fall? To help you build your own Pollinator Patch, see our Roadsides Guide.

Roadsides Guide to Creating Pollinator Patches

The first Pollinator Patch was planted in Barrie, Ontario, in May of 2010. Visit the Roadsides site, read the blog, and be sure to look at the gallery to see pictures of the creation of Pollinator Patch #1.

Roadsides web site

 

Take care of the Earth. It's the only planet with chocolate! - anonymous

 

Jottings

Jottings contains some articles I've written for the monthly newsletter of Barrie's Garden Club and other projects. I did the newsletter for 6 years and have quite a collection of "fillers." I also write just for me. What better place to share them than on my own site. I hope you enjoy them.

 

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Ansel Adams

 

Hints & Tricks

This is a collection of neat ideas and crazy tricks that I've collected from various sources. Many are amusing, and most are useful. We gardeners just love to learn neat little ways of doing our gardening jobs more effectively. My most popular talk is just that: "Hints and Tricks."

Most of the hints I've used myself or know someone who will vouch for them. All of them are fun to read and almost as much fun to do.

 

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Carl Sagan

 

Gardening Info

This is a miscellaneous section of all the odds and sods of information I've collected and would like to share. I've found most of the information in magazines and on the internet or in the many gardening books I can't resist buying!

This section includes two of my presentations using Adobe Presenter.

You'll also find some of my favourite links on the Gardening Info page.

 

Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.’s job.
~ Philip Angell, Monsanto's director of communications

 

The Blog

I guess the whole site is a sort of blog, isn't it?

But this new section is a more conventional blog -- a space to put my thoughts and new ideas as I learn them or think them.