May 2026 Edible Garden Planner

Early May edible garden

Saturday, May 2, 2026

May Day or Mother's Day is when the old timers say is the best time to plant your summer garden in the Midwest.  Prior to May 1, there is still a good chance of poor weather, chilly temps, and even a late frost in our Zone 7 garden.  This can be catastrophic for tomatoes, eggplants, basil and other heat lovers.  This year our last frost was 2 weeks ago.

Check out your 15 day forecast to know if it looks safe to plant those tender summer veggies as it is possible to have chilly temps even into May.  If direct planting summer vegetable seeds, chilly and rainy conditions can cause the seeds to rot.  Warm, moist conditions are the best for summer seed success!  

You just don't want to plant the summer lovers too early as they don't like being cold and don't grow much until the soil warms.  Earlier is not always better.  If you have already planted, no worries as long as you protect them if Jack Frost comes calling.  They just won't grow fast until the weather warms.

I started the summer lovers from seeds this year indoors for veggies with small seeds in late March and started the large seeded summer veggies of squash, melons, cucumbers and beans outdoors in peat pots 10 days ago.  The small seeded plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant were transplanted into the garden and large pots a couple of weeks ago.  The large seeded veggies have just begun to sprout.  As soon as they have their first set of true leaves, I will transplant to the garden. 

If you started yours indoors and have already transplanted outdoors, what do you do if they are forecasting frost?  Give them a jacket!  You can cover your frost sensitive plants with a row cover or light sheet.  You just want to be sure that the cover is not too heavy and crushes your plants.  For heavier covers, be sure to put stakes around your plants to protect them from the weight.  Remove after the frost is melted.  If you plant in pots, you can move your pots into the garage for the night.  For more on protection for plants, see Starting the garden earlier, outwitting Jack Frost... 

Row cover

Spring has had days above and days below average temperatures and below average rainfall.  I've had to water all my pots and garden beds on and off through April.  The greens that love the cool weather are doing great!  

May is the time to get the summer lovers growing.  The summer edible garden  For the plants to get going in May: What to plant in the May edible garden  If sowing your summer veggie seeds outdoors, see Outdoor seed starting tips 

The cold crops are at their peak at the beginning of the month with many bolting and going to seed by month's end like spinach, cilantro, lettuce, chard, kale, sprouting broccoli, and onions.  To preserve greens while they are still at their peak is quick and easy.  Freezing the extras for winter  The only green that is not frozen?  Lettuce.  I keep lettuce going in the garden by planting new seed every 3 weeks.  I also plant greens that love summer heat like New Zealand Spinach, Red Malabar spinach, orach and amaranth.  

Lettuce, spinach and cilantro all go to bolting as soon as the temps hit the 80's in our garden.  I have chard, Ruby Streaks mustard and winter cress that are flowering.  You can let them go to seed and either save the seed to plant or let the seed fall where it may to give you new lettuce, spinach and cilantro plants.  An added bonus to letting these plants go to seed is that the bees love their small flowers.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Mid May garden

So, what are we planting this year?  Of course, we will plant the number one veggie in the USA-tomatoes!   This year, I grew them all from seed.  You could also just buy plants as there is a great selection of heirlooms at local nurseries, hardware stores and big box stores these days. Last year we had such long stretches of upper 90's that our tomato harvest was small.  Once the temperatures stay in the upper 90's, the tomato flowers start to get sterile.  

This year, I have started my standby heirlooms and am trying a few heat and disease resistant varieties.  I have 12 ready to transplant.  Standbys-Chocolate Pear, 3 different Brandywines, Cherokee Purple, Italian Red Pear paste tomato.  Disease/Heat Resistant-Tropic VPN and Mannon's Majesty.  Just for fun-a storage tomato Long Keeper and California Keeper.  Also bought a large Better Boy that I put in the biggest pot I could find.  Last year, we got tomatoes in June from this type.   Choosing which tomatoes to grow   Different colors in tomatoes give different nutrition   Tomatoes 101, everything you need to know to grow great tomatoes  

If you have limited space, look for the dwarf/bush types like Bush Early Girl (only 54 days till ripe tomatoes), Patio Princess, Husky Red, Lizzano, Little Napoli, Front Runner, Tumbling Tom among many others. Typically, you can expect to have your first ripe tomatoes around the 4th of July.  The earliest tomato bearing variety I have grown is Yellow Tumbling Tom and Better Boy plants that I bought that gave me tomatoes in June.  They grow great in the garden or pots.  The Tumbling Tom is a small plant so it can be grown in a large pot.  Better Boy is a larger plant so needs a pot the size of a half whiskey barrel.  Compact tomato plants for small spaces  Nowadays, you can purchase full grown plants to get tomatoes sooner if the temperatures cooperate.  Tomatoes need many days in the 80's to produce tomatoes and ripen.

I will be growing vining yard long beans (growing 3 different kinds this year-Chinese Red Noodle, Yancheng and Taiwan Black)  They are very disease resistance and high producing.  Will also grow Christmas Speckles lima beans and 1500 Year Old Cave beans.  The 1500 beans can be picked for either snap beans or left on the vine to be storage beans.  Now is a great time to get beans planted.  Legumes-peas for spring, beans for summer  

For peppers, I am growing a few different sweet peppers for fresh snacking-Spanish Bull Nose, Doe Hill Golden Bell, a red snacking pepper from saved seed, Habanada, a sweet Jalapeño hybrid-Nadapeno.  I also have 4 hot pepper plants I overwintered-Jigsaw, Tunisian Baklouti, and a red and orange Chiltepin pepper plants.  The red Chiltepin is 10 years old now.  I grow hot peppers for hot sauce and to add to my salsa.  The small hot peppers I use in my grilling spice mix and for spicy olive oil.   Homemade hot sauce wings with homegrown celery  Quick, homemade salsa  Preserving peppers  Using herbs, flowers and fruit for flavored sugars and salts

 This year I am again going to plant all my peppers in pots.  It just seems that my peppers do better in a pot than in the ground for the smaller peppers.  I tend to plant more of the smaller peppers because the plants produce more than larger pepper plants.  Bell peppers seemed to produce more in ground when I have grown them in the past.  I'll put them in the largest pots.  It's a good idea to refresh your potting soil each year to get the most production.  Re-energize your potting soil!   Peppers are for every taste and garden

I am growing a few eggplants that have stayed sweet in our garden, all in pots.  Our summers get so hot here that eggplant skins can get tough and the fruits bitter so I always look for the varieties that are good for our temps.  My choices this year are Rotanda Bianca, Amadeo, and AO Daimaru.  Eggplant-add this native from India to your garden

White eggplant fruit

I am growing 2 summer squash-Trombetta and Zapallito Del Tronco.   Both are supposed to be disease and squash bug resistant.  I have grown Trombetta over the last 3 years and they were not affected by the squash vine borer or squash bugs, they had almost no powdery mildew, and you can eat when the fruits are young as you would zucchini or let them stay on the vine and the skins will toughen to use as winter squash.  They also don't produce a huge harvest all at once.  Just a couple a week which is perfect for us.  Growing zucchini and summer squash  One plant produces as much as a typical family needs during the summer.  Trombetta has vines up to 20 feet long so I just let it grow on the ground.

I found some great ways to use and preserve zucchini that any extra will be stored for many new ways of using.  What to do with all that zucchini?!  I really liked spiralizing zucchini into "zoodles" and using in place of spaghetti.  I'll spiralize and put into freezer bags so I have a low carb, nutritious option anytime for spaghetti.

I am also trying a few winter squash varieties-Buttercup, Thai Kang Kok, and Ayote Green.  I use winter squash in pies and pumpkin bread.  If you want to save seed, only grow one type of squash variety.  Summer squash cross pollinates with other summer squash; winter squash and pumpkins do the same.  

I Red Burgundy okra again this year and re-trying Heavy Hitter.  I've tried a few different varieties but Red Burgundy seems to do the best in my garden.  I'm giving Heavy Hitter another chance.  Growing and harvesting okra

  I've got cucumber, spinach, and lettuce seedlings this year for salads and to make green smoothies.  Grow your own juice garden   I am growing a bush cucumber and a vining cucumber so I'll only need one trellis.  Cucumber info and tips for growing  I have plenty of volunteer celery and mustard in the garden so no planting needed for them.  The pink celery I started last year looks healthy so hoping for some volunteers from it this summer. 

Lettuce varieties that are in my spring garden are Red and Green Romaine, Iceberg, Buttercrunch, Giant Blue Feather, Grand Rapids, Royal Oak, Bronze Beauty, Butter King, and Solar Flare.  I am always trying new varieties to see which are the best at staying sweet in our summer heat and also re-sowing themselves.

Lettuce and spinach aren't the only greens you can use for salads.   I have transplanted orach, Chinese Multi Color Spinach amaranth and Pink Beauty amaranth which are great for summer salad leaves when lettuce has bolted.  Orach and amaranth leaves stay sweet all summer.  I also have New Zealand spinach and Red Malabar spinach I overwintered indoors, seedlings of Perpetual Spinach and Verde de Taglio chard, Hilton Chinese cabbage for salads and wraps, Komatsuna Tendergreen and Giant Leaf mustard for sweet summer salad leaves.  I always grow Radish Dragon's Tail for salads, too.  They're just fun and add a pop of not too strong radish flavor.  See more on summer salad greens at  Growing summer salads

For the next round of lettuce sowings, I'll go with the more heat resistant varieties like Jericho Romaine which has been tested to last 3 months before bolting as well as Red Sails loose leaf lettuce which stays sweet after bolting.   Want continuous harvests? Succession planting!   Look for varieties that have heat tolerant in the descriptor.  Here are some varieties that are proven to do well in the summer   Bolt-free, sweet summer lettuces

Spring potted lettuce

For herbs, I have a bay tree and moringa tree that overwintered in the basement. I have sown seeds for Cardinal and Purple Ball basil, dill, Butterfly papalo (cilantro substitute that does well in the summer), rosemary, and marjoram.  Many of my herbs are perennials and are going strong in the garden right now-tarragon, garlic chives, garden chives, onions, oregano, thyme, mint, and garlic.  For more on herbs, see  Start a kitchen herb garden!

As I transplant my seedlings, I like to powder the roots of each plant with plant starter as well as dig in some fertilizer in each hole.  Plant starter has mycorrhizal microbes which fixes nitrogen to the roots of the plant, helping it to grow sturdier, bigger and faster.  Once you have the microbes in the soil, they should stay year after year, but adding each year can't hurt anything!

I add Azomite in each hole of my transplants when I plant every other year.   Azomite contains many minerals which can result in significantly improved growth for your plants and more minerals in your harvested plants for a healthier you.  A win-win for your garden and your family.

During the growing season, you should fertilize monthly.  Only add what a soil test said your garden needed when it comes to phosphorous and potassium.  You can get too much of both in the garden.  We added compost, sulfur and a natural fertilizer to the beds before we mulched.  Wood mulch raises the pH over time.  Mine was up around 7.8 so it was time to bring it down into the 6.5-7.5 range.  Sulfur lowers pH gradually over a few months.  When it gets above 7.5, vegetables can't absorb the minerals they need from the soil.

  The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals

Before you send your new transplants into the garden, insure they have been sufficiently "hardened off."  If you started your own seeds indoors, take your plants out daily over a week or so into a partially shady spot, letting them get used to the strong sun and wind.  I put mine out on the deck to get used to the sun and wind for several days before planting out.  "Hardening off" seedlings

If you purchased your transplants and they were already outdoors, they are ready to be plopped into the ground or pot and grow!

I always interplant my garden with flowers.  This year, I am using petunias, red flowering Hummingbird Vine, Blue morning glory flowering vine, cock's comb, marigolds, Love Lies Bleeding, dwarf Cocks Comb, flame cock's comb and Sweet William for annuals.  For perennials, there are pink Fairy lilies, white flowering jasmine vine,  hollyhocks in a variety of colors-Summer Carnival, Red and Peach, purple coneflower, lilies, day-lilies, irises, and gladiolas.  I am also encircling all my beds with daffodils and creeping thyme to repel voles.

May is an exciting time in the garden.  Every day you go out, you can see things growing.  The spring vegetables are in their prime, the summer veggies are just starting, and there are so many herbs ready for seasoning your favorite salads or dishes.  Just be sure to keep ahead of the weeds and provide even watering.