We're in that time of year where temps can swing quite a bit over the days and nights, with the trend gradually pushing toward warmer and drier weather as spring gives way to summer. I'm not looking forward to the heat.
This year's garden is not an ambitious one. Dan had a knee replacement in early March, so we adjusted our expectations to allow for recovery time. Most of the planting is done for now, so garden chores revolve around watering as needed, mulching as plants get tall enough, and weeding until we get to that point. I work in the garden most mornings until going on 10, when it's getting too warm in the sun.
Here are my late spring garden photos:
|
|
These early peppers are a treat. This is one of the 3 surviving pepper
plants I overwintered in the greenhouse. One of the others is flowering, but the last one probably won't make it. |
|
|
Another greenhouse survivor, a volunteer cherry tomato plant. We'll have tomatoes on our salads early this year! |
|
| My red raspberries are doing abundantly well. |
EXCEPT!
 |
| A groundhog has taken up residence under the raspberry bed! So far, it has eluded attempts to be captured and re-homed. |
Said groundhog has done quite a bit of damage in the pea and lettuce bed.
All my pea plants have been pulled down and the ends eaten off. The last of the spring lettuce has been eaten as well. It will soon be too hot for lettuce, so I haven't replanted. I've sprayed the peas with a critter be-gone product, but I'm not hopeful. We usually eat peas abundantly through June, but not this year.
 |
| Even so, I've had a few peas to pick. But we're missing our customary pea salads. |
 |
| Raspberries and kefir for breakfast, with a sprinkle of ginger and cloves |
 |
| Cantaloupe in the African keyhole garden |
 |
| Slicing tomato flower |
 |
| Volunteer lambs quarter |
The photo above was taken in the old Buff Orpington yard. They had pretty much scratched and eaten everything down to the dirt by the time we moved them into the large chicken yard. Everything in there now is volunteers. We have tons of lambs quarter and black oil sunflowers! Those are from the chicken scratch. We also have a few elderberry trees and kudzu, which I feed to the goats.
We eat lambs quarter fresh in salad and steamed or sauteed as a green.
 |
| The clusters of leaves can be harvested all summer. |
This year instead of canning some, I've been dehydrating it.
 |
| Dried and chopped lambs quarter leaves. |
It's a great addition to soups, stews, or to make lambs quarter lasagna or quiche.
And here's some living art. The Egyptian walking onions grow in the most interesting ways.
 |
| Red raspberries and horse radish leaves in the background |
So that's my garden at the end of May. Care to share yours?
Garden Notes: Late Spring © May 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment