What I planted this week end

Early May potted lettuce

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Mother's Day is when old timers say it is the best time to plant your summer garden.  Prior to May 1, there is still a good chance of poor weather, chilly temps, and frost in our Zone 7 garden.  This can be catastrophic for tomatoes, eggplants, basil and other heat lovers.

Today, we have the added advantage of the 15 day forecast!  I checked out ours and it showed acceptable temperatures for the next 15 days.  Warm temperatures and weekly rain is the perfect recipe to get the summer lovers off to a good start.

I have a much smaller space for my garden this year so am having to be choiceful on what to plant.  That is hard for me!  There are just so many interesting varieties that you can get at nurseries and seed catalogs!

This year I planted my eggplant (6 varieties), peppers (3 varieties), and greens in pots.  I narrowed my tomato plants down to 5 varieties.  I'll grow bush zucchini to save space.  I put my spaghetti squash in the potato boxes along with a mystery plant that sprouted everywhere from the mushroom compost we spread over the garden.  I am using a trellis for 2 cucumber plants.  I have one sweet potato plant and one winter squash plant that will run between plants.  I tucked okra between my hostas.  That will give the hostas shade they will appreciate as the temperatures heat up.

For the veggies and flowers, I used worm castings, starter, fish meal and char in each planting hole.  I'll add kelp meal throughout the garden after everything is planted to add trace elements to the soil.  I used Azomite last year so I'll switch to kelp meal this year.  

I have more lettuce and greens that I started from seed and am hardening off.  The next round of greens are those that can stand the heat of summer.  I'll have to thin my celery and sprouting broccoli from my pots to make room for the extra greens.  I moved out winter cress last week end to have room for more lettuce plants.  In the pot that housed New Zealand spinach last year, there are many volunteers coming back up so no need to plant any additional.  

I did start Red Malabar spinach from seed.  Those are hardened off and in a pot where they can grow up the portable greenhouse frame.  It is a quite pretty vine, in addition to being a tasty summer green.  I tried bringing the vine in over the winter, but it did not survive in the garage or inside the house.

I have the trellises in place for vining beans.  I'll plant those with inoculant tomorrow.  I have a few varieties of Alpine strawberries that I started from seed that I will wait until they are bigger before planting in the garden.

I tucked petunias into all the pots of eggplant and peppers.  I have Heavenly Blue morning glory growing up the supporting posts of the patio cover along with perennial white jasmine vine.  I see there are red Hummingbird Vine volunteers in the garden.  I will transplant a couple to the patio support posts to have a red, white and blue theme.   The rest I will pull.

I started a few flowers from seed as well that I will put in amongst the veggies.  Flowers attract pollinators and other beneficial insects in addition to adding beauty and fragrance to the garden.  Deer also do not like strong scents so having herbs and fragrant flowers throughout the garden helps to deter them, too.