Garden Work and Tasks in April

And here comes April! The past winter was very pleasant and snowy, but spring is always better. Many of us are already impatiently waiting for the moment when we can put on work gloves and get to gardening, because there's garden work waiting!

Worried that some tasks might slip your mind? We'll give you a little to-do list of work that would be wise to do in April.

Sow seeds in boxes

If you're a true gardener who wants to grow your own summer flowers and vegetables, now is the perfect time to get seeds sprouting. Cucumbers, spinach, cabbage, celery, cauliflower – get them all growing. Think how nice it will be later to pick all these fruits from your own garden!

Set up a plant shelf for yourself where there would be enough light, and installing supplementary lighting wouldn't hurt either.

Soil meant for sowing must be at room temperature and soaked through beforehand. To avoid later confusion, equip your containers with labels: which pot has cabbage and where the cucumbers go.

On your first sowing, it's easy to plant seeds too deep. Don't make that mistake and read the information carefully on the seed packet before sowing. Surprise, surprise – not all seeds even want to be covered with soil at all.

Clean up the greenhouse

If you didn't have time in the fall, collect all the dried plants left from last year and take them to your compost pile. Clean up planting boxes or beds – however your greenhouse is set up – and sow radishes, lettuce, spinach, dill and arugula in them.

Free the roses from winter covering

Roses and other plants that you covered for cold protection can now be released and the covers removed. To avoid scaring the plant too much, do this on a cloudy day. If you're worried that the frost hasn't finished yet, you can leave the roses covered a bit longer.

Cut off damaged branches and add support to climbing roses.

Check over your lawn

If the lawn is still wet, wait until it dries out, don't walk on it before then. Otherwise you'll just do damage to the lawn. When most of the lawn is green, rake it over. After the first spring raking, it feels like you've swept the floor clean – such a nice feeling when looking at your handiwork.

Clean up the strawberries

If you want an early strawberry harvest, cut off the old leaves already now. If you're worried about late frosts, don't do this, as the leaves protect the plant from the cold. A third option is to cut the leaves anyway, but cover the bed with a cover.

Clean up the flower beds

Cut off the dried flower stems from last year and take them to your compost pile too. Loosen the soil.

Take flower bulbs out of the cellar

If you put dahlias and gladiolus bulbs in the cellar for the winter, now is the right time to bring them out into a warmer room to acclimatize. You can plant them in the ground only when you no longer need to fear late frosts. Note! The soil shouldn't be too wet, dahlias particularly don't like that at all.

Cut back the hedge

If your deciduous shrub hedge has grown over, April is a good time to trim and cut it back.

Clean up garden paths

See if the pavement held up well over winter and replace broken tiles or stones if necessary. Remove weeds from between the tiles. Yes, weeds are always the first thing to start growing in spring.

Clean up the balcony

If you don't have a garden but you do have a balcony, there's plenty to do here too. Sweep the balcony clean and bring out the furniture. On sunny days it's already quite nice to sit outside and have a cup of tea.

Clean up your balcony boxes – remove the old soil and replace it with new. If you're a new balcony owner and don't have balcony boxes yet, we definitely recommend measuring your balcony before going to the store. That way you'll buy boxes in just the right quantity and size.

First, you can plant more tender plants in the boxes or planters, which are beautifully colorful and can tolerate small temperature drops.

Don't forget your houseplants

If the weather outside happens to be poor, so you can't do anything in the garden, then check on your houseplants too. Repot them if necessary, prune them and fertilize them.