N & C Midwest: May 2016!

Cold and dreary as predicted here. Indoor drudgery for me I guess. Yuk. Could harvest some radishes, thin turnips, beets and carrots, try to get peas onto poles. Lettuce, kale and chard can probably be had. Need a few more Yukon Gold potatoes in yet....so some garden hope!

I may try to plant the rest of my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant today...maybe get some cuke and green bean seeds in the ground...need a warm cup of coffee in the garden.  I may also make a run the local Ag center for t-posts and cattle panels and build a few more trellises.

I would love to get some of my heat lovers in the garden! I have seriously oversized marigolds, which could probably go out tomorrow night. But based on the weather forecast, I cannot see putting anything tender out yet? What is this? May 15th?

Nasturtiums, can I put those out? What about the sunflower starts?

Frost advisory until 9am here today, so nothing out again since when I left for work it was just hitting a balmy 40F. And the dog spazzed out and broke one of my tomato seedlings in half, necessitating a surgical tape job that will be interesting....

Cool here now, sunny, but am going to wait to put things out. I did harvest my spinach, radishes, and some lettuce and chard leaves.

I was disappointed in the Chinese Red Meat radishes from Baker's Creek. They looked so different in the catalog I had to try them. All radishes were in for 60 days, had serious cold weather at the beginning, so gave them some extra time. The White Icicle and Sparkler did fine, forming globes over 50% of the time. Not one single one of the "special" radishes was edible! Not one. And they were just long fibrous roots. I will throw them in this fall, because I have the seed and want to see if the warm start makes a difference.

I had frost Mon morning, but had covered everything so I was ok.  Salad greens doing well, and I should be able to start picking radishes this weekend.  Hope to get the warm weather veggies in soon.

herblover wrote:I had frost Mon morning, but had covered everything so I was ok.  Salad greens doing well, and I should be able to start picking radishes this weekend.  Hope to get the warm weather veggies in soon.

Me too, but all I had out was cold crops. Looks like we might finally hit it this weekend, that is when my tenders are going in; they are needing root depth, so do or die. Hoping they will be OK!

My broken tomato seedling experiment was bust. If I had had a bit more of a connection between the top and root half, maybe. But it was complete decapitation. And the tape was stretchy....not good. It was my runt Great White. It did not germinate well so restarted it after 4 weeks.

Speaking of bad germination, I put 12 little cells in of Ruby Crunch lettuce, and NOT a SINGLE one made it! I only saw one up, and it is now "poof". What in the heck? Lettuce!??!!! I have never had that happen....

Landarch, you are ahead of us, keep us posted?

Kate, where are you? Probably out managing that massive garden!

Frost advisory again tonight... I already lost all my tomatoes.   Hot peppers are about 50%; but my daughter advises me they like to be traumatized. She will also supply my heirloom tomatoes for the year. The cabbages are looking fine - they do nicely in the cold weather. Mid-seventies by the weekend! But I will not be planting the rest of my garden until the end of next week. I started some broccoli and zucchini in the house last week, the broccoli has come up. After another two weeks, they should be nice little plants to put out. It's so hard to wait.........

Oh, that's so frustrating, Suzy.   I'm glad your daughter could help out with the maters. I can sure relate to strange weather. We've had days where we needed heat in the morning and a/c by afternoon. 

Suzy wrote:Frost advisory again tonight... I already lost all my tomatoes.   Hot peppers are about 50%; but my daughter advises me they like to be traumatized. She will also supply my heirloom tomatoes for the year. The cabbages are looking fine - they do nicely in the cold weather. Mid-seventies by the weekend! But I will not be planting the rest of my garden until the end of next week. I started some broccoli and zucchini in the house last week, the broccoli has come up. After another two weeks, they should be nice little plants to put out. It's so hard to wait.........

My heat has been on every night this week!? Really! Crazy cold. And wet. Last year was wet...really wet. But wow. I hear ya, Suzy, I have stuff in 4" pots that should be in the ground (OK, SFG) but no way. This weekend is my window, what does your forecast say about after Saturday?

the sun made an appearance this evening for a few hours...80 degree temps forecast for later in the week...at that point I'll be complaining about the heat, complaining about watering, complaining the peas and lettuce are done, etc.

Scorpio Rising wrote:

My heat has been on every night this week!?  Really!  Crazy cold.  And wet.  Last year was wet...really wet.  But wow.  I hear ya, Suzy, I have stuff in 4" pots that should be in the ground (OK, SFG) but no way.  This weekend is my window, what does your forecast say about after Saturday?

By Saturday, high of 75 and low 51. The next 10 days mid- to high 70's and mid 50's for lows. Safe for planting!   Perfect weather for gardening - and just about anything else! Looks like it could be a wet week, tho, but as long as it isn't TOO wet it's perfect timing. C'mon, weekend!!

@ Landarch, FARMERS! Always the weather....forecast, planting dates, failures....always failures!

@ Suzy, there is light at the end of our cold, wet tunnel at last! I am planting this weekend! All goin' in, baby

one day of sun and my green beans and cukes have poked through...also I just pinched the tops of my pepper plants back a bit...did this last year and it seemed to work well.

landarch wrote:one day of sun and my green beans and cukes have poked through...also I just pinched the tops of my pepper plants back a bit...did this last year and it seemed to work well.

Landarch, I pinched my peppers back too. Looking a bit gangly.

No show from my pole beans yet...and have tons of stuff to get in somewhere this weekend....Like annuals for the grad party..

Why do the girls want it at home? Had the house painted, tons of work in yard, which hasn't happened yet.....Just tons of work....and I work:(

Nice today, also mostly OK for weekend. Gonna plant all my ridiculously ready to go, oversized plants out!

Today's the day! My wonderful daughter had 44 duplicate tomato plants, they are going in my garden today. She admitted most of them are GWR, she had chosen them for the community garden plot she has. She figured people wouldn't be stealing them if they didn't realize they were ripe!   So my salsa will be a lovely shade of green next fall! 

I will also be putting in pole beans, zucchini, cucumbers, swiss chard, lettuce & carrots. Then I'll look at my boxes and my seed stash and see what else I have room for. The raspberries are looking fabulous, I only lost two transplants. 

Happy gardening, Happy MAY! WHEEEEE! 

people steal tomatoes?  I would get a trail cam.

I've had experience with that.  I'm in a community garden and have made trips back to pick tomatoes I had been keeping a close eye on, only to have found them missing.  Same thing with watermelons (more painful than a tomato when missing).

I need to get the rest of my garden in soon to free-up some fishing time.  Maybe some pics tonight.

Suzy, what is GWR?

SR, looks like my planting summer window is Monday.  Stormy crazy windy weather this Sunday, but after that only cloudy and rainy until Wed.  Monday it is!  In the rain.
 
CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Suzy, what is GWR?

SR, looks like my planting summer window is Monday.  Stormy crazy windy weather this Sunday, but after that only cloudy and rainy until Wed.  Monday it is!  In the rain.
 
CC

CC, I planted my entire garden last year in a full on rain. It rained and rained and rained here last spring. Ruined a pair of shoes. Had waterlogged toes. But got it in!

I think GWR is green when ripe. Excellent strategy for a community garden!

My do or die is this weekend. My plants are über outgrowing their modest containers. Especially some tomatoes, the peppers, squash, and marigolds! And the sunflowers and nasturtiums are just in little starter blocks....gotta go in.

Yes, GWR is "green when ripe" - Sorry! You want a real chuckle, look up Green Sausage Tomato. 

Tomatoes are all in, looking fine! The rest of the garden will have to wait a few days, I totally ran out of time. And energy. GAH! I'm 59 years old, my body just doesn't move as fast as it used to. I get so frustrated! But I so enjoy my garden... I guess I'll keep growing food as long as I can get my body to respond, no matter how long it takes!

Nighty night!

I get it, Suzy! I am about there and it just takes me so much longer to do things these days!

Suzy wrote: I totally ran out of time. And energy. GAH! I'm 59 years old, my body just doesn't move as fast as it used to. I get so frustrated! But I so enjoy my garden... I guess I'll keep growing food as long as I can get my body to respond, no matter how long it takes!

Have you noticed that they keep making the seeds a little smaller every year?

YES. I hate that! Lol!

I thought it was just me. I use a tweezers to drop my tiny seeds into a tiny hole and then I can't tell if I got a tiny seed in that tiny hole or if I missed the tiny hole.........

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:
Have you noticed that they keep making the seeds a little smaller every year?

Absolutely!

Suzy wrote:I thought it was just me. I use a tweezers to drop my tiny seeds into a tiny hole and then I can't tell if I got a tiny seed in that tiny hole or if I missed the tiny hole.........

+1, so you stick another seed in the hole just to make sure.