We hope to plant most of our garden today if we can beat the rain that’s forecasted to fall.
Our spring things are coming right along, well most of them. Potatoes are up and looking good, cabbage is growing quickly and we’ve been eating radishes, green onions, lettuce, and asparagus.
The carrots we sowed are looking spotty so I may plant a few more. I’ve already replanted some lettuce that didn’t come up well and if the beets don’t improve I may replant some of them too.
The long row of flowers I planted in front of the cabbage is looking very promising. The gazanias we got from Satterfields are thriving and all the zinnia seed has sprouted. I’m hoping the rest of the flower seed will come up too. The other flowers we got at Satterfield’s Nursery are doing well and brightening the gardens.
I’ve been keeping a keen eye on the fruiting things. The blackberry blooms seem extra heavy this year so I hope that means a bumper crop. The tiniest grapes are forming on all of our vines and it appears we will have a good blueberry year.
Here’s the best planting signs for May 2025.
Taurus: good for all root crops and above ground crops 24, 25
Cancer: best for planting above ground and root crops 1, 2, 28, 29
Scorpio: best for flowers and above ground crops 10, 11, 12
Pisces: good for planting and transplanting above ground crops, trees and shrubbery 20, 21
Last night’s video: April in Appalachia.
Tipper
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Randy, I truly enjoy the things you share. Sitting around with classmates is a good time and I’m glad you got to enjoy it!!
I’m sorry you suffer gout. My husband and most of the men in his family have been seriously afflicted with it. Hubby has been on generic Uloric for several years now and hasn’t had any more bouts of it. Thank God. We tried all the natural things, but nothing worked. We are not ones to turn to pharmacy meds first, but he had to do something it was so severe.
Thanks for sharing your life with us each day. I always look forward to seeing it.
Tipper, count me as one who lets your videos just play all day. I grew up in a small city (Oak Ridge, just outside of Knoxville) but my maternal grandmother came up similar to your Granny. I know your Granny is your mother, my Granny really was my grandmother! She was raised in Loudon County, somewhat below Knoxville in East Tennessee. All the relatives on her side of the family have that mountain way of speaking. Listening to y’all brings me a calmness but also a little bit of homesick sometimes.
I got to rambling and almost forgot my question: when planting by the signs, when do you plant herbs? Are they an above ground crop or a flower?
Thank you so much for all your family shares with us!
Mary, I’m so glad you enjoy what we do! We really appreciate you 🙂 I’m so glad we remind you of family and good times. I would plant herbs on any of the days listed. I believe the best days are under Cancer but will plant on the others too.
Thank you so much – I’ll mark my calendar!
Hope your gardening a smashing success.
Happy Birthday to Matt! Hope it was a wonderful day for you all.
Tipper, I’ve noticed that the blackberries over in my neck of the woods have bloomed extra heavily this year. I sure hope that they produce a nice crop of berries this summer. Homemade blackberry jelly on a good hot biscuit with butter is always a welcome treat.
Happy Gardening! And Happy Birthday to Matt !
I think this is my favorite time of year for your blog and vlog. Love the gardening, harvesting, cooking, canning. All of it. Thanks for all the hard work you and the family put in! ☮️
Tipper-what happened to your green cornbread plate? I haven’t seen it recently.
Also, I need to mention that I am seeing more of Matt’s sense of humor, which I enjoy. I love a sense of humor, and I am known to have one, and be quite a prankster.
Seeing Granny in that beautiful light purple sweater smiling made my day.
Pears are just finishing blooming as well as cherries here in Washington State. Before long, the apples will be blooming.
Jan-I still have it 🙂 I used it tonight. Thank you!
I meant blackberry winter lol
I just love watching y’all raise a garden, ours is in things are coming up, but it’s cool here in North Alabama. I guess we’re getting library winner about now. I hope you have great success with everything you planted.
I saw a wild cucumber tree blooming today. Missy came today and drove me around a little so I was able to look around more. They have a huge white blossom compared to other trees.
I love reading on the BP blog about all the beautiful flowers, I can’t get outside and plant anything anymore, wished that I could. I love flowers, my favorite flower is tulips. Tipper, hope that your garden does well since you replanted some of your seeds. Have a glorious day on this 1st of May everyone.
Good luck. Maybe you will get it planted before the rain begins. It is 10:45 A.M. and not rain in northwest Alabama yet, but it is coming.
We have had weather alert days all week, making it a tough decision whether to plant or not. High winds and hail could destroy all of my delicate tomato plants, which I planted from seeds. If that should happen, I would not be able to replant them this year, as the heirloom varieties are nearly impossible to find around here. I hope to get everything planted today or tomorrow, so my leggy plants don’t have to wait till the 10th, 11th, or 12th to enjoy real dirt and leave the potting soil behind. I will be planting candy roasters for the first time, a new and exciting squash I had never heard of until I read about it on the BP blog. Thanks Tipper!
Happy planting and gardening day!! Happy Birthday Matt!!
I agree with you about the blackberry bloom. It seems extra full this spring. But I cut back and transplanted my 2-year old canes this spring. They are doing fine but I won’t have any blackberries this year. May not next either if I don’t get new canes this year. I planted lettuce twice and have none. First time I ever had a total failure. Mystified. My garden is so full I don’t have room to plant much of anything more. By the way, I heard you on a video this morning talk about the “orange honeysuckle” blooming. It got my attention because growing up we called the wild azalea “honeysuckle”. We only had one wild kind, a white and pink one which I later learned is also called “Pinxter flower”. They do not grow here in north GA. Hope all your promising plants, buds and fruits do very well.
The orange “honeysuckle” and the “Pinxterbloom” both grew on Wiggins Creek. That’s in Swain County. Both are stealthy plants, wanting to grow in very hard to reach areas.
We are heading to a local greenhouse to buy tomato and pepper plants today. Thank you for the May planting signs. Your video on your big hearty breakfast was so good. I am like you in that I love to feed people—It makes them and me happy. I am about to watch your latest April video this morning. I had grandchildren to keep me busy yesterday, so I didn’t have time to watch it yet. Have a great day everyone!
Have fun working in the garden. Can’t believe youre making Matt work in the garden on his birthday. I’m sure he doesn’t mind. He’s just thinking about getting to eat all that food.
I always thought being able to work on any of my birthdays was a big joy! It meant I was still kicking, nowadays at my age I consider it a blessing to just wiggle a little bit! My Daddy liked to say he was glad to be having birthdays and getting older, if he ever stopped having birthdays or making mistakes, he was in trouble.
I worked on my birthday for most of my working life. Only when it fell on Sunday did I take off and even then I went in at 11:00 PM. Double pay had an pleasant effect on my paycheck. I even worked through most of my vacation time. My wife and I both were “in a hole” when we first started out and it took me a long time just to get back to ground level.
Working vacations and holidays didn’t bother me as, as far back as I can remember, worked every day except Sunday. On Sunday I only had to milk the cow and feed the animals.
Not doing something productive all the time always been alien to me, so now that I’m old and in poor health I get depressed when it’s cold or rainy outside.
Hoping and praying your garden produces a bountiful harvest this year.
Debbie, I am ok, even though I have been having trouble with gout in my left foot for a couple of weeks. Believe it or not, I really didn’t have much to say yesterday or even today about planting by the signs. Yesterday, I did something I really enjoyed, for the last several years in April the boys of my senior high school class will get together in April for a lunch. This year instead of lunch, we met at the old school football field under a very large oak tree and just sit around in lawn chairs and “jawed” for a few hours with one another. We joked about how we used to run around the track and football field and now for me and some of the other ones we can hardly walk much less run! There was about 70 boys in my class, now about one third have died. This does not include the girls. Class of 1972, Woodmont High School, Piedmont, SC, 53 years ago, where did the time go?
I joked and told them I was smarter than I was given credit for when I was in school, I learned to sit in the back of my classes, you didn’t get called on very often and you could “check out” all the girls without being noticed! My senior year, my best friend talked me in to taking a bookkeeping class, he said it would be all girls, I told him you just talked me into it, 3 boys and about 30 girls. This was before I started dating the girl that would become my precious wife. This year would be 51 years if she had lived.
Great story about the bookkeeping class. I signed up for shorthand class my senior year (’60) but was not allowed to enter the class because it was all girls. The advisor claimed that I only wanted to be in a class of all girls, but the truth is that I was planning to go to college and thought I’d use the skill to take class notes. Years later I ran into that counselor and told him I should have sued him for discrimination. I told him at the time that if I’d wanted only female classmates I’d have signed up for home economics.
I wonder what would happen today if they disallowed a male student from taking shorthand (if it’s even taught today)?
I believe most of our garden will lay fallow this year. We’ve canned so much in the last 3 that we are way ahead. I need to make some salsa, canned coleslaw, and I will make a few jars of refrigerator pickles, but we don’t really need to put up anything. I’d like a few things to eat fresh. There are many things to do around our home and a break from the big garden will allow us that time.
Randy, I missed your comment yesterday. Hope you’re doing well. Maybe I just read through to quickly.
Tipper I wish y’all the best of luck on your gardens. I hope it’s plentiful and even surprises y’all!
I want to learn more about planting by the signs! Thank you for sharing about that! The last video was so good! I loved how excited Granny was about her new flowers!