What To Do In Your Garden In April [Planting Guide]

It’s April, and that means in most USDA gardening zones, there’s lots of work to be done!

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We’re in Zone 7, so we’ve already set out our cool weather crops, and by the first week of April, we’ll be ready to start harvesting our first veggies of the season!

This article is broken down by zones to make it easier for you to know exactly what you should be doing in April in your garden.

If you’re not sure what zone you live in, you can check that here.

Here’s what you can do in your garden right now!

Zone 3

• Add compost to your garden when soil is workable
• When weather is mild, sow onions, lettuce, spinach, peas, and carrots outdoors
• Start your squash, melons, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and corn indoors and under lights.
• Get seed potatoes ready for planting next month
• Start radishes, bok choy, kale, collards, swiss chard outside

Zone 4

• Plant cool-weather vegetables including peas, spinach, bok choy, tatsoi, lettuce, turnips, radishes, and onions.
• Plant raspberry bushes on a sunny, south-facing plot
• Start your squash, melons, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and corn indoors and under lights.
• Plant fruit trees.

Zone 5

• When the weather is mild and soil warm enough, transplant early tomatoes outdoors, inside hoop houses
• Sow a second planting of lettuce, radishes, and spinach outdoors.
• Continue to grow squash, melons, tomatoes, peppers cucumbers, and corn indoors and under lights.
• Plant fruit trees.
• Start herbs such as basil, thyme, and mint

Zone 6

• Top-dress garden beds with rich black compost.
• Plant potatoes, peas, spinach, bok choy, kale, beets, turnips, and carrots.
• Plant fruit trees.
• Plant asparagus, rhubarb, and raspberries.

Zone 7

• Thin greens and radishes as needed.
• Plant fruit trees.
• If purchasing transplants, choose compact plants that have not begun to flower.
• Remove row covers from peas as long as the weather is mild.
• Transplant broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower
• Mulch around cool-season crops to retain moisture and keep roots cool as weather warms.
• Start cucumber, cantaloupe, summer squash, and watermelon indoors and under lights.
• Now is the time to start luffa.
• Set out transplants of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and sweet potatoes.
• Set out culinary herbs
• Prune peach trees.

Zone 8

• Give vegetables a feeding of compost tea
• Plant okra, peanuts, shell peas, sweet potatoes, squash, melons, cucumbers, corn, and herbs
• Plant tomatoes, corn, squash, and peppers outdoors.
• Plant culinary herbs

Zone 9

• Plant heat-loving pumpkins, squash, melons, peppers, sweet potatoes, and eggplants
• Every 2 weeks, succession plant bush beans and corn.
• Continue to plant cool weather crops until the end of the month
• Transplant tomatoes and peppers.
• Continue to plant culinary herbs

Zone 10

• Harvest spinach, lettuce, and broccoli.
• Plant heat-loving pumpkins, squash, melons, peppers, sweet potatoes, and eggplants
• Be sure to add lots of compost to your soil if it’s sandy and lacking nutrients

I’d like to hear from you!

What do you think you’ll plant in April? Leave a comment below!