April Garden Newsletter & Baby Chick Arrival
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed getting seedlings started and visiting garden centers for plants this past few weeks and now it’s time to really lay out the garden and get those plants in the ground. The last frost has past and the temperatures are really warming up consistently now. So lets go through some of the thing we can tackle in the garden this month! Plus, those baby chicks should be coming in the mail!! So we can take a look at my setup for baby chick brooders!
In this month’s newsletter, we are going to discuss:
What Blooms this Month!
What You Should Be Harvesting Now
What to Plant in Ground
Baby Chick Arrival
What Blooms this Month!
This month, you should be seeing Violet, Pansy and Viola, Coneflower, Dahlias, Ranunculus, and Zinnias!
What You Should be Harvesting Now
Lettuce and more lettuce! While a lot of your lettuces and greens may be bolting at this point, if you did succession planting, you should still be getting a few of these lettuces and greens even now! Your lettuce should be in it’s prime! You should also be harvesting turnips and radishes if you haven’t already. Asparagus should be coming up for you and strawberries should be ripening as well. You may also have some cold weather herbs still hanging on like cilantro. But the herbs that are really shining right now are Sage, Marjoram, Parsley, Mint, and Lemon Balm!
What to Plant in Ground
If you didn’t get a chance to plant in the ground last month, there is still time left! All your warm weather crops can go in the ground! Tomatoes, Peppers, Squash, Cucumbers, Melons, Eggplant, Okra, Corn, etc!
If you haven’t already planted your dahlias, zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums, and other summer flowers, go ahead, and do that now. It’s definitely not too late!
Baby Chick Arrival
So, the most exciting time of the year is the arrival of baby chicks! I ordered mine from Meyer Hatchery. They’ve been really great in the past and I’ve had very healthy hens! I have seven new baby chicks that arrived happy and healthy! I have them in an easy brooder setup that I show in detail on my YouTube Channel. You can watch that video here: The easiest baby chick brooder setup!
To recap the video, this is hands down the most simple and effective chick brooder setup that I can possibly imagine. This is called a small animal playpen, which you can purchase on Amazon. I’ll put a link below for you.
This Producers Pride Brooder Heater is from Tractor Supply. It works well for a warm weather setup. I get my baby chicks in between April and June, so that it’s warm enough for them to be kept on my back porch. You can see they are nice and sleepy and cozy under there.
The feeder and waterer are from Rent A Coop, which I also got from Amazon. I put dry starter feed in the feeder and wet feed in the dish. For water, they seemed to prefer the yellow nozzle, but a few of them seemed to prefer the dish. I just left them both out.
I get my large flake shavings at True Value, just because they are a little cheaper there. I read that the fine shavings can cause respiratory issues with the baby chicks.
Having the brooder be completely enclosed is so important. It keeps bugs and small critters out, but also keeps he baby chicks inside. It doesn’t take long for them to get strong enough to hop out. So, this ensures they stay safely inside!
You can see the babies are really happy and comfortable. They have the warmth and security of the heater if they want it, but the sun also peaks into the pen so they can get some vitamin D. This is another reason I like being able to put this on the back porch. I also liked having it up on a table. It made it easy to clean without having to bend over at all. It’s important to note that my back porch is screened in and predator proof.
So there you go!! This is what I consider to be the most perfect brooder set up for raising baby chicks!!
Producer's Pride Chicken Coop Brooder and Heater for 10 Birds at Tractor Supply Co
I hope you all have a wonderful April, and I’ll see you again in the next newsletter!!