Rainfall
- 3rd: 2.17"
- 6th: 1.57"
- 8th: 0.13"
- 9th: 2.4"
- 13-14th: 0.92"
- 15th: 0.04"
- 17th: 0.12"
- 18th: 0.01"
- 19th: 0.69"
- 23rd: 0.15"
- 25th: 0.09"
- 27th: 0.4"
- Total: 8.69 inches
Temperature
- range of nighttime lows: 48 to 65°F (9 to 18°C)
- range of daytime highs: 65 to 86°F (18 to 30°C)
Weather Notes
- Hail on the 6th
- Very wet month, with quite a few days of drizzle with no accumulation.
- Because the temps are mild, moisture remains in the ground and doesn't evaporate right out (one of our worst problems in hot summer).
Planted
- pole beans, Cornfield
- peanuts
- buckwheat
- summer squash, Tatume
- okra, Clemson Spineless
- sunflowers, Russian Mammoth
- cantaloupe, Hale's Best
- pearl millet
- collards
- pepper plants
Harvested
- lettuce
- strawberries
- snow peas
- wild lettuce
- chickweed
- kale
- mulberries
- oregano
- asparagus
- red raspberries
- peppermint
- greenhouse potatoes
- hopniss
- horseradish root
- turnip
Garden Photos
Except there are no actual photos of the garden!
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Early May meant a flush of strawberries, and so our first strawberry shortcake of the year with homegrown whipped cream. |
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| Edible pod peas and red raspberries. |
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| Pea and peanut salad with a dollop of mayonnaise. |
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| Greenhouse potato harvest. Not a lot, but I didn't plant a lot. I'd call it a successful experiment! |
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| Mulberries |
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| Mulberry pancakes |
And then, since Dan has been talking about pineapple, I thought I'd make him
an upside-down cake, substituting mulberries for those yucky candied cherries.
Unfortunately, when I turned it out of the pan . . .
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| Upside-down cake fail |
I think this is because I cut back on the sugar and butter, because I cut back
on sugar and butter in all my cakes. That works for the cake, but didn't give
me enough sauce for the pineapple and berries. So it stuck to the pan! But it
still tasted good and I learned a lesson for next time.
Your turn. How does your garden grow?
Garden Notes: May 2024 © May 2024
Now that I have a garden again, I need to actually list all the things by type and variety like you did, for my own records.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, still nothing planted but watching the weather here and listening to coworkers that garden is fascinating. In general, temps are in the 60' to 70's, the soil is not quite warm enough yet and the nights still a bit too cold (we can still see the mid 40's in the morning) - and there is plenty of moisture still, which sounds a little late for the season.
ReplyDeleteI have gotten about 10qt bags of mulberries in the freezer. Ate the last of the Swiss chard, and the one bok choy I had success with. Picked about 100 peaches and some yet to ripen. A handful of blue berries, with many more not quite ready. Picked the last of the kumquats for the goats, they dried out. A Seminole/tan cheese pumpkin over wintered and I think there's 24 pumpkins on it. I picked half were the sun baked the vine. I have potatoes yet to dig but not many and I planted late. Onions, I'm pulling them as I need them or they start drying off. Although we've had more precip than we usually get in spring, the in between days have been some mid 90's with low humidity and it sucks the moisture out of anything exposed.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, these monthly garden notes are really helpful for that. I used to try to record it all in a notebook, but kept misplacing the notebook!
ReplyDeleteTB, it's probably not a bad thing to just watch and collect notes seeing your in a new gardening zone. Nice that you have gardening co-workers, you'll pick up a lot of tips from them. I envy your temps. Ours here are too close to summerish, lol.
Annie, wow! You've made a fantastic start on preserving the harvest! I don't envy those 90s though. :)
Oh, that strawberry shortcake! My strawberries are just blooming. Lots of rhubarb stuff though, and asparagus. Garden is mostly planted. We did have a very cool night Friday, and had to get some covers out for the transplants. It got down to 6C, but we can have patchy frost at just a little cooler than that. Otherwise, we are past our last frost date, although that is no guarantee...Nature is sure busting ahead on her agenda!
ReplyDeleteRosalea, rhubarb! Lucky you. I've tried to grow it but it never makes it past our hot dry spells. No telling nature what to do. :)
ReplyDeleteOur garden has been a bit slow, I think probably due to lack of nutrients which is to be expected for a new garden. Our radishes all got woody before they got big enough to harvest. We do have some peas that look promising but thus farm, we have been mostly limited to lettuce and the few small radishes I pulled before they got woody.
ReplyDeleteHow exciting to see your harvests! I've got some lettuce almost ready. Most are just some seed I sprinkled in a planter, but I also planted one of those rooted specialty hydroponic lettuce which is doing well. It feels like I'm late getting my garden in this year, but not really. It's just the weird weather. We've a new 4x8 raised bed which is almost done, so I'm excited to get plants and seeds in the ground. Now if it would only stop raining!
ReplyDeleteEd, it doesn't seem to take several years to really get a garden established. Yours will only get better and better!
ReplyDeleteNina, interesting about the specialty lettuce. I didn't know they'd developed things especially for hydroponics. Sounds like you're making good garden progress, though, even with uncooperative weather!
You have so much consistent rain! Is there a dry season where you are?
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to hearing how your cantaloupe does. I've haven't yet had success with melon.
If the cake was eaten, it could hardly be called a fail!
Enjoy your week's end!
Daisy, we do indeed have a dry season - summer! It's unpredictable, though, as to exactly when and for how long. I think only one summer in the 15 we've been here had sufficient rain.
ReplyDeleteMy first planting of cantaloupe disappeared. The seedlings, I mean. So I did a second planting and put an old welded wire tomato cage over the mound. I have seedlings again, so hopefully, these will make it!