NoTime2Watch
Gardening

What to Plant in April: 10 Crops for a Full Harvest Season

Fleur de Graaf — Horticulture writer covering sustainable gardening, landscaping, and urban farming3 min readUpdated April 1, 2026
What to Plant in April: 10 Crops for a Full Harvest Season

Key Takeaways

  • •James Prigioni's video '10 Crops You'd Be CRAZY Not to Plant in April' lays out a practical, crop-by-crop guide for gardeners deciding what to plant in April to set up strong spring and summer harvests.
  • •He covers everything from soil temperature thresholds and seed soaking techniques to spacing, germination tricks, and variety picks that actually hold up against common pests.
  • •The list spans cool-season crops like peas, spinach, and carrots alongside warm-season starters like cucumbers, squash, and potatoes, with enough specifics to make the advice genuinely actionable rather than decorative.

What to Plant in April for a Full Season of Harvests

April sits in that awkward sweet spot where the calendar says spring but the soil hasn't always caught up. In 10 Crops You'd Be CRAZY Not to Plant in April, James Prigioni treats that tension seriously, opening his list not with the easiest crops but with the ones that reward gardeners who pay attention to timing and technique. What vegetables to plant in April isn't a simple question, because the right answer depends on your soil temperature, your last frost date, and whether you're direct sowing or starting indoors. He gives you numbers instead of vibes, which is rarer than it should be.

The Cool-Season Window Is Shorter Than You Think

Peas go in first, direct sown in early April, two to three inches apart and one to two inches deep. The move that most gardeners skip is soaking the seeds for 24 hours beforehand, which Prigioni says meaningfully bumps germination rates. Once those shoots emerge, birds will absolutely go after them, so netting is non-negotiable. Spinach follows a similar logic: plant it before the heat arrives or lose it to bolting. Fresh seeds matter here because spinach viability drops off fast, and a packet from two seasons ago is a gamble. Four to nine seeds per square foot, soaked first, thinned later. If you've ever wondered

Our Analysis— Fleur de Graaf, Horticulture writer covering sustainable gardening, landscaping, and urban farming

Our Analysis: Prigioni covers the what and the when pretty reliably, but he glosses over the why things fail. Telling you to soak peas is useful. Not telling you that planting them in cold, waterlogged soil right after that soak just rots them anyway is the gap that costs people a season.

The frost warning at the end feels tacked on. It's actually the most important thing in the video. April is a trap for optimistic gardeners, and one warm week in early April will fool you into planting cucumbers two weeks too soon every single time.

There's also a broader pattern worth naming: gardening content on YouTube has a structural incentive to be encouraging rather than cautionary. A video that opens with five ways your April plantings might fail is a harder sell than one promising ten crops you'd be crazy not to grow. That's not a criticism of Prigioni specifically — his numbers-first approach already puts him ahead of most — but it does mean the viewer is left to supply the skepticism themselves. Soil temperature thresholds and seed soaking tips are actionable, but the mental model underneath them (that April is a month of genuine risk, not just optimism) gets underserved.

The spacing and germination specifics are where this kind of content earns its keep. Most gardening advice operates at the level of "plant after your last frost date," which is true but nearly useless without knowing your microclimate, your soil drainage, or whether that late cold snap your region gets every third year is going to wipe out your cucumbers. Prigioni gets closer to useful than most, and that's worth acknowledging — but the gap between "here's when to plant" and "here's what goes wrong and why" is still where a lot of April gardens quietly fail before anyone figures out the cause.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best thing to plant in April?
For most gardeners, the strongest April plantings are a mix of cool-season crops like peas, spinach, and carrots—which go in early while soil is still cold—and warm-season starters like cucumbers, squash, and potatoes that can follow once temperatures stabilize. James Prigioni's April vegetable planting guide is worth taking seriously here because he ties each crop to specific soil temperature thresholds rather than just calendar dates, which is the detail most generic advice skips. If you can only pick one early-April crop, peas are the consensus frontrunner: they tolerate cold, germinate fast with a 24-hour soak, and free up bed space by summer.
Is it too late to start a garden in April?
No—April is actually one of the most productive months to start, not a missed window. Cool-season crops like spinach and peas genuinely need to go in April or earlier, and warm-season vegetables like cucumbers and squash are right on schedule for direct sowing or transplanting as the month progresses. The real risk isn't starting too late in April; it's planting warm-season crops before your last frost date has passed, which varies significantly by region.
What soil temperature do you need before planting vegetables in April?
Soil temperature is the variable most April planting guides gloss over, and it's the one that actually determines success. Cool-season crops like peas and spinach can germinate in soil as cold as 40–45°F, while warm-season crops like cucumbers and squash need at least 60°F to avoid rotting in the ground. Prigioni's approach of giving specific temperature thresholds per crop—rather than a single blanket rule—is genuinely more useful than a standard spring vegetable planting schedule.
Does soaking seeds before planting actually improve germination rates?
The evidence broadly supports it for certain seeds—particularly hard-coated varieties like peas and beets—where soaking softens the seed coat and can speed up moisture absorption. Prigioni recommends a 24-hour soak for peas specifically, and that aligns with common horticultural practice. That said, soaking isn't universally beneficial; fine seeds and those prone to rot in wet conditions can actually be harmed by pre-soaking, so it's crop-specific advice, not a universal April seed starting tip. (Note: germination improvement varies by seed variety and soaking duration—results aren't guaranteed across all crops.)
What is the 70/30 rule for gardening?
The 70/30 rule is sometimes cited as a general principle suggesting that 70% of gardening success comes from soil preparation and 30% from plant selection or technique—though its origin isn't tied to any single authoritative source and it circulates more as folk wisdom than established horticulture. It doesn't appear in Prigioni's April gardening advice, which leans more on precise timing and variety selection than broad ratios. We'd treat this one with skepticism as a guiding framework; soil health matters enormously, but the split itself is unverified. (Note: this claim is debated among experts and lacks a clear evidence base.)

Based on viewer questions and search trends. These answers reflect our editorial analysis. We may be wrong.

✓ Editorially reviewed & refined — This article was revised to meet our editorial standards.

Source: Based on a video by James Prigioni — Watch original video

This article was created by NoTime2Watch's editorial team using AI-assisted research. All content includes substantial original analysis and is reviewed for accuracy before publication.

Related Articles