What's happening in the mid May edible garden

Potted lettuce

Saturday, May 11, 2024

Everything is lush and green this time of year.  The edibles are growing quickly.   Salad fixings are in their prime with the summer edibles just getting started.  Herbs are filling out nicely.  By this time of year, we no longer need to purchase produce from the grocery store and can get fresh herbs to add to dishes that make them taste wonderful and are chock full of antioxidants.

The greens we are eating-French sorrel, spinach, dandelion greens, winter cress, arugula, chick weed, sweet clover, celery, Ruby Streaks mustard, Chinese Giant Leaf mustard, sprouting broccoli leaves, orach, amaranth, many varieties of lettuce and snow peas.  Many are overwintered or volunteers from last year.  I also started different varieties of lettuce and bought a few transplants from the store.  I like to have new lettuces coming on all the time so there is always plenty for salads.

I have lots of volunteer Red Malabar spinach, Blue Feather lettuce, carrots, sprouting broccoli, squash and Giant Leaf mustard popping up all over the garden.  I have had 5 volunteer tomato plants come up, too, that I dug and gave away.

Herbs to add to dishes and salads-garlic chives, regular chives, oregano, thyme, horseradish, Egyptian walking onions, tarragon, sage, young garlic, cilantro, marjoram.  All are perennials or self-sowers so they come back year after year.

The fruits and veggies-wild strawberries, cultivated strawberries, raspberries and carrots.  Strawberries and raspberry bushes are perennial and carrots overwintered and came up from last year's seed.

The flowers that are blooming-irises, spiderwort, roses, hydrangeas, marigolds and petunias.  The herbs and veggies going to seed-yellow flowers of the sprouting broccoli, mustard and cress, yellow dandelion flowers, lavender chive flowers, and some varieties of spinach.  Soon, the beautiful purple flowers of sage, the white flowers of thyme, and the white garlic chive flowers.  All veggie and herb flowers are edible.  A fun way to add flavor and beauty to salads or other dishes.

The overwintering and early spring planted lettuce is beginning to bolt so soon there will be the white, yellow and blue flowers from the different kinds of lettuce.  Several carrots are starting to bolt, too.  If not pulled, they have beautiful white flowers resembling Queen Ann's Lace, which are in the same family, that bees love.

The white and pink peonies and lilacs have already come and gone.  They both were heavy with flowers this spring.  

This week, I transplanted some beans, cucumber, melon and squash plants I started indoors in coir pots.  I'll transplant into their permanent spot when they get their second set of leaves. I had started beans a couple weeks ago in the garden bed and they are about 6 inches tall now.   The tomatoes I transplanted into the garden bed at the same time are doing great!  The basil plants are doing well.  My husband transplanted the tomato plants I started for him into his upside down 5 gallon bucket growing system at the same time I did and his are doing very well, too.

I have a few seeds started outside in coir pots that I am waiting for them to get big enough to transplant-rosemary, marjoram, Jigsaw hot pepper, Habanada sweet pepper, Purple Yard Long bean and winter savory.  I just started Indigo Pear Drop tomato and White Scallop summer squash seeds in a wet paper towel.  After they sprout, I'll put them in a coir pot.

It is a good idea to wait 10 days after planting new plants before you give them much fertilizer.  I'll add a diluted liquid fertilizer to all that have their first set of true leaves in the next week.  When I transplant them, I will add char, worm castings and starter to each planting hole.

It's okay to just be getting started in the edible garden with the summer lovers.  You can plant a summer garden into June and still have a nice harvest.

Volunteer Red Malabar spinach and Chinese Multicolor amaranth

I have been harvesting the greens by taking only the outer leaves so that the plants will continue to grow.  By harvesting, it stimulates the plant to grow even more leaves.  If you have extra greens, besides lettuce, you can blanch and freeze them.  I still have plenty left in the freezer.  Preservation garden

I am doing good right now on lettuce, but will need to start some more seeds in a couple of weeks.  If you start seeds every 2-3 weeks, it keeps you in lettuce all the way until winter.  This time of year, start the heat tolerant varieties.   I have also moved to using greens that stay sweet during the dog days of summer.  The greens I have found so far that are great lettuce and spinach substitutes in salads are Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, Perpetual Spinach chard, Chinese Multicolored amaranth, all colors of orach, Chinese Hilton cabbage (doubles as a great wrap, too), sprouting broccoli.  Keep salads going all summer long. 

I I overwintered Tumbling Tom tomatoes and New Zealand spinach in the house.  The tomato plants are covered in fruits with a few ripe ones.  The New Zealand spinach is back outside and doing great.  We use their leaves just like spinach in salads.  They are heat lovers with leaves that stay sweet all summer; a great spinach substitute.