Gardening time has arrived!

May has arrived and it's time to get serious about the gardens. It seems like we went from snow-covered, frozen tundra to the exuberant green of newly-formed leaves and the sunny yellows of daffs in the blink of an eye (okay, maybe there was a week or two of mud in between).  We’ve been in the 70s here for the past few days and new life is on display everywhere.  I think we skipped spring altogether, but hey, I’m out gardening and that’s all that matters.

Brother Jim should have the vegetable beds re-tilled by today (although the big patch may need to be re-tilled for a 3rd time next week).  Nora tilled the new plots in the fall with her beloved tractor, but she could only get one tilling in before the wet snow arrived.  The area had been pasture for who knows how long before the fall till, so there’s a whole lot of sod in there not quite willing to give up that last hold on life.  But alas, I have better uses for the space, so we must bid adieu.  The great news is there are very few stones to pick out of the new plots!  The same could not be said for the other side of the pasture that used to house the veggies garden.

Newly tilled areas: Lower left (30'x10') is for pumpkins; lower right (30'x15') is for melons and some flowers; larger plot on top (roughly 40' x 40') is for the remainder of the veggies and flowers. Scattered in between are the raspberry and a portion of the blueberry beds.

Provided that this second tilling does the trick, Nora and I will be out planting this weekend.  Onion and shallot sets, beets, carrots, green onions, and a host of flowers (cosmos, calendula, zinnia, sunflowers and marigolds) are on the “to-be planted” list.  I’ll probably plant some of the herb seeds as well.  I’m going to try my hand at some of the tea herbs – lemon balm, chamomile, various mints; I’d love to be able to dry and package my own blends.

With this unseasonably warm start to the growing season, I couldn’t wait any longer to get the “cold” crops in the ground.  On Tuesday evening, I weeded a small raised bed usually reserved for herbs, and planted a few rows of butter crunch lettuce, Amish deer tongue lettuce (a romaine-like lettuce), and some peas.  Thankfully our nights are still in the 40s, but who knows whether they’ll survive the warm days.  I do hope so.  I’d love to be eating some fresh peas and lettuce by mid-June.