Lots of planting to be done in the month of May. We typically plant most of the things we grow during this month. I’m anxious to use the new gardening areas we built earlier this year.
My Sow True Seed Radishes have almost all been harvested so I can put some of my summer veggies in their bed that’s already been prepared. Using all the spring beds for summer veggies as the spring veggies play out makes for much easier planting.
I’m also anxious to get started with my Sow True Seed Cucumber Reporters @ Large Project. Always exciting to try out new varieties. Drop back by tomorrow for a peek into B.Ruth’s garden.
Tipper
I checked my official rain gauge (my wheelbarrow) this afternoon and it was half full. Judging from that, I have received 6 inches of rain in the past 3 days. That is a year’s worth of rain to some folks around the world, so this is an observation, not a complaint.
Tipper,
For the past 2 or 3 hours, I’ve been lost reading Grannyism pages. Some take you back over 5 years and I just love the comments about our Grannies folks shared. I had a couple of ’em too, and I’m
forever Grateful for those memories…Ken
PS: Dusty has one of those bluetooth necklace phones so he can safely talk on the phone while driving.
We got two bad thunderstorms here yesterday. The first one lasted only about ten minutes but had heavy rain, high winds and quarter sized hail that shredded the blooms on my rhododendrons. The second lasted much longer and had more lightning, thunder and heavy rain but no more high winds or hail, thank the Lord.
Dusty got stuck in a heavy thunderstorm on I-77 south of Charlotte, down below Pineville coming back from South Carolina. He called me and gave me a play by play of the event. He said traffic was moving at about 5 mph and he could see passed the hood of the truck. I pulled up the weather radar and told him if he turned onto I-485 he would get out of the storm quicker. “I was going to turn there to get out of the I-77 traffic but I think I just missed the exit.” He got out of the storm about when he got out of Charlotte.
I’ll bet that was one of the storms that contributed to Jim Casada’s ten inches of rainfall.
Que será será
Tipper,
Thanks for listing The Pressley Girls schedule. It’s good to see they will be at Valleytown Baptist on May 29th at 6:00. That’s real close to my shop for me and if everything is OK, I’ll be there.
Those radishes look so good! If all this rain would quit, it makes me want a garden. I’m looking forward to seeing B. Ruth’s and Roy’s plantings this year…Ken
Tipper,
Yummm, I can just taste a crunchy radish right now…always loved to grab up some, wash, just barely cut off the root and dip in my handful of salt while resting after walking around the garden…I think we really got our radishes out late, (rainy, then when they starting growing it has been hot…they really like cool temps better…I planted a new one for us, Long White Icicle…lots of green no roots much!
I love to have a new spot to plant garden, I know you are looking forward to that new raised beds!
Some areas close by here had large hail late yesterday with downed lines and trees…We just got the hard rain…looks like the tomatoes and peppers, etc. held up but it beat my azalea blooms to pieces.
I hope If the sun shines today or tomorrow I can take pictures of the Suyo Long Asian cucumbers and the Australia heirloom (specially cucumber) Richmond Green Apple….
The report so far is….They jumped out of the ground! Glad we had the trellis up! We will have to make a small wire hoop for the small round compact Richmond Green Apple! The Marketmores
were just planted a couple of days ago in the bigger garden…too wet to check them, maybe later today!
Thanks Tipper,
PS….The weather people say we are in for a big dip in temperature, maybe snow flurries in the high elevations…Some are calling it “Blackberry winter”…not here…our blackberries are about bloomed out! I think it is like Jim says, “a Catbird Squall…especially since my wild honeysuckles are ready to pop and the catbirds mew from the thickets at that time! I guarantee I’ll hear them after this quick cold squall. After that the last winter weather lore that I remember is “Whip-poor-will winter”., around June first!
My father, J. Marion Dyer, was a great one to “plant by the signs.” I think it worked because our garden yield was always excellent, and so were his crops of corn, Blue Ribbon cane for making sorghum syrup, the patches of green beans we grew for market, and the collards, cabbage and Bell pepper we also grew for market. So planting by the signs is good for us Appalachian gardeners/farmers! Learn and grow, is my advice!
Someone posted recently on your blog about not planting until after blackberry has bloomed. I think I will adopt that as a guideline for the warm season plants. Maybe I can use sarvis blooming for a guide to planting cool season stuff. Another kind of planting by the signs, I guess.
I am ready to finish pulling the radishes also. Just haven’t figured out what, if anything, to plant back in that spot. It is a bit too shady now that leaves are fully out.
Because my garden is so small, I trellis my cucumbers using a welded wire cylinder of the 2″ x 4″ mesh. I make them about 18″ in diameter which takes a little less than 5 feet of wire. The 5 foot tall fence wire is about the right height. Wire costs about $0.50 per foot in the 100 foot roll. Plus, the cylinders can be taken apart and used as row covers or whatever inventive use you can come up with. I used them to cover cabbage plants this past winter.
How beautiful those Pressley Girls look …. with eyes and smiles that just sparkle!
Eleanor Loos, Columbia Station OH
Tip, the Pressley Girls site is really looking good and, wow, are they going to be busy this summer. Their thousands of hours of practice is showing in their talent!
AND, they do landscaping in their spare time when they’re not going to school, playing music and helping Grannie adjust to life without Pap and lets not forget they make jewelry and home remedies too!
You all are the busiest people I know!
Tipper–It has rained so much here in the last four days (right at ten inches), that the description you sometimes hear, “It fell a flood,” is surely applicable. Any planting or plowing will be out of the question for at least two weeks. In fact, I can’t even get in the garden to pick kale and spinach. The ground is so soaked I mire up, and for the first time in forty years of cultivating this patch of ground washing has been a problem. Such, alas, is the gardener’s sometime lot, and of course at time farmers get this kind of adversity writ large.
Jim Casada