April is a great month to begin planting vegetables in the garden. It’s always a good idea to look at the long-range forecast to make sure there aren’t any mornings where the temperatures are expected to be in the 30’s before planting tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash. These summer crops are tender and may even be killed when temperatures reach that low.

Many vegetables can be grown in containers so if you have had difficulty growing them in the soil consider planting them in containers and see if they grow better that way. I found over the last couple of years that I have some soil borne disease in my soil that affect tomatoes, so I can’t grow tomatoes in my soil, but they grow wonderfully in large containers. Growing them in containers does mean more frequent trips with the water hose, but I can live with that if I can get a few tasty tomatoes from the plants.

When deciding if growing vegetables in containers is the right thing to do, consider the size of the container needed for the plant. While peppers can be grown in a 12-inch container, tomatoes and squash need a minimum container size of 24 inches. That little tomato or squash plant may look lost in that size of a container early on in the growing season, but they do get rather large and to prevent the need for transplanting into a larger container, simply start with the larger container.