April Calendar of Events
April 5 – Palm Sunday
April 9 – Passover
April 10 – Good Friday
April 12 – Easter
April 13 - Tims Ford Council - 2nd membership meeting
2009
3rd weekend in April - High on the Hog
April 22 – Administrative Professionals Day
1st weekend in May - Dogwood Festival
Gardening Tips for the month of April
For an active gardener each month of the year comes
with specific tasks. Several activities including the
new ones will have to be accomplished in that particular
month.
Here are some of the home gardening tips which will
certainly be helpful for you.
·
April is the month when you must prune the
spring flowering shrubs as soon as they are finished up
with blooming.
·
First fortnight of this month is very much
appropriate for sowing the seeds of Bush, Lima, and Pole
Beans, Pumpkins, Radish, and Squash. You should ensure
at the same time that the planting beds are sufficiently
moist facilitating good germinating conditions for the
seeds.
·
Closely related crops or the same crops should not be repeated in the same
place in your garden. Plants and crops belonging to the
same family should also be avoided as far as possible.
For instance, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage,
Cauliflower, Kale, Radishes, and Turnips all belong to
the same family. Instead, you should opt for different
crops that are not related with each other in any way.
You may try Radishes in the place you grew Black-Eyed
Peas last year.
·
The Gladiolus plant comes every week
during April and May months. You can also plan out a
succession of summer blooms in your garden with these
plants.
·
This is the best month for sowing certain
specific plants and crops. Some of them include
Cantaloupe, Cucumber, Mustard, Okra, Sweet Corn,
Black-Eyed Peas, Pepper, and Watermelon seeds. Sweet
Potatoes could also be sowed in the month of April.
·
In case you observe black spots on your
roses then treat the plant and flowers immediately with
baking soda spray.
·
If you have Azaleas in your garden then
fertilize them during April because it is the time when
they will finish blooming. Select an organic flower food
or a suitable chemical fertilizer which is fit for
Azalea. Ensure proper water subsequent to fertilizing
the plants.
·
If you have an inclination for growing
herbs in your garden then April is ideal for some of
them. Plant herbs like Dill, Spearmint, Italian Oregano,
French Tarragon, Sweet Basil, Rosemary, Sage, and Thyme.
For
growing herbs bright sunlight exposed locations are more
appropriate. You should learn growing herbs well in
advance so that you can avoid committing common
mistakes. For instance, some of the mints are good
looking and beneficial as well but they are invasive. So
if you are planting such mint plants then better confine
them to a pot or wide-spreading space so that its
invasion doesn’t affect other plants.
·
During April weeds and other undesirable
plants grow as well. It is the favorite season for them
as well. You should keep a constant vigil on the
vegetable and flower beds in your garden and pull
immediately the weeds so that they do not grow further.
Desirable
plants in your garden thus would get sufficient water,
nutrients, sunlight, and proper space to grow
·
You must also consider planting the
container-roses, perennial flowers, warm season flowers
like celosia, Impatiens, Periwinkles, Portulaca, and
Zinnia in this month.
·
You must take care of aphids during April.
Be cautious particularly in the tender new growth.
Better use water for blasting the little pests off in
order to safeguard your plants.
·
For all the landscape beds and vegetable
beds it is the most appropriate month for adding
compost. Addition of compost will enrich the quality of
soil further. Mulching of beds also becomes very
pertinent during this month. Mulching with compost or
any suitable organic material will ensure maintaining
moisture.
·
If your houseplants have overgrown
then better re-pot them. Select an inch larger pot which
is also an inch more in diameter than to the previous
one. While transferring the plant to the new
container, you must ensure that the depth of the soil is
one-inch below the container-rim. Keep the same depth
while re-planting them also.
·
Clean your houseplants with spray, cloth,
water, or a hand held shower. Be gentle to the leaves
while cleaning them.
·
Birds in your garden always make the
surrounding pleasant. You may like to leave a couple of
feeders open and filled with a variety of foods. Create
an additional pond or bird bath with a defined shelter
with bird houses or trees and shrubs. Birds not only
please you mood but also eat the insects feeding on
plants. So love plants and birds equally.
·
When the April month approaches an end
you should start planting warm weather grass like
Bermuda in an open space of your garden. It will always
remind you of the April pleasures.
The
Traditions of Easter
As with most all “Christian” holidays,
Easter had been secularized and commercialized. The
dichotomous nature of Easter and its symbols, however,
is not necessarily a modern fabrication. Since its
conception as a holy celebration in the second century,
Easter has had its non religious side. In fact, Easter
was originally a pagan festival. The ancient Saxons
celebrated the return of Spring with an uproarious
festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of
springtime, Estre. When the second-century Christian
missionaries encountered the tribes of the north with
their pagan celebrations, they attempted to convert them
to Christianity. They did so, however, in clandestine
manner. It would have been suicide for the very early
Christian converts to celebrate their holy days with
observances that did not coincide with celebrations that
already existed. To save lives, the missionaries
cleverly decided to spread their religious message
slowly throughout the populations by allowing them to
continue to celebrate pagan feasts, but do so in a
Christian manner. As it happened, the pagan festival of
Eastre occurred at the same time of year as the
Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ. It
made sense, therefore, to alter the festival itself, to
make it a Christian celebration as converts were slowly
won over. The early name, Eastre, was eventually changed
to the modern spelling, Easter.
The
Date of Easter
Prior to A.D. 325, Easter was variously celebrated
on different days of the week, including Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. In that year, the Council of
Nicaea was convened by emperor Constantine. It issued
the Easter Rule which states that Easter shall be
celebrated on the first Sunday that occurs after the
first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. However,
a caveat must be introduced here. The “full moon” in the
rule is the ecclesiastical full moon, which is defined
as the fourteenth day of a tabular lunation, where day 1
corresponds to the ecclesiastical New Moon. It does not
always occurred on the same dates as the astronomical
full moon. The ecclesiastical “vernal equinox” is always
on March 21. Therefore, Easter must be celebrated on a
Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25.
The
Lenten Season
Lent is the forty-six day period just prior to
Easter Sunday. It begins on Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras
(French for “Fat Tuesday”) is a celebration, sometimes
called “Carnival,” practiced around the world, on the
Tuesday prior to Ash Wednesday. It was designed as a way
to “get it all out” before the sacrifices for Lent
began. New Orleans is the focal point of Mardi Gras
celebrations in the U.S. Read about the religious
meanings of the Lenten Season.
The
Easter Bunny
The Easter Bunny is not a modern invention. The
symbol originated with the pagan festival of Eastre. The
goddess, Eastre, was worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons
through her earthly symbol, the rabbit. The Germans
brought the symbol of the Easter Rabbit to America. It
was widely ignored by other Christians until shortly
after the Civil War. In fact, Easter itself was not
widely celebrated in America until after that time.
The Easter Egg
As with the Easter Bunny and the holiday itself, the
Easter Egg predates the Christian holiday of Easter. The
exchange of eggs in the springtime is a custom that was
centuries old when Easter was first celebrated by
Christians. From the earliest times, the egg was a
symbol of rebirth in most cultures. Eggs were often
wrapped in gold leaf or , if you were a peasant, colored
brightly by boiling them with the leaves or petals of
certain flowers. Today children hunt colored eggs and
place them in Easter baskets along with the modern
version of real Easter eggs – those made of plastic or
chocolate candy.
