Good morning all. Glorious weather here in west Michigan. I started planting seeds and putting plants in the ground. I don’t think May 19 will be our last frost date by any means.
My 8 Diana Flower Pots went in yesterday. They had doubled in size.
Also put in 3 big broccoli plants. Our smaller plants will go in later. Also put in our big better boy and san marzano plants. Seeds, planted butterkin squash, snow pea pods, chinese long beans and cucumbers. I hope to plant a little more each day. Tomorrow heavy rain expected. Once everything is in the ground we will be using Dr. Jim Z’s Chicken Soup for the Soil, which has done wonders these past 2 years especially on the flowers, roses and clematis. The birds are singing. Love being outside. And my pawpaw trees are loaded with flowers. Our most ever. 4 trees all with flowers. I tried last year with horse manure to draw flies but I just did not get enough fruit. Someone suggested pig poop and I got 2 hefty bags of straw/poop from some friends. Placed the on the ground in front of the trees and slit the bags open yesterday. Before I walked away there were 4 flies on it - “Like flies on sh!t”.
Our other tomato plants, campari and sabre, still too small to put in. Maybe Monday I’ll be putting in 5 shishito pepper plants and one banana pepper plant. Lots of Costa Rican red pepper plants too small yet. After 39 years of gardening here we have it down to a science as to what we like and what grows well.
New this year, I am tired of putting plant identifier tags in the ground. They are hard to read after awhile and wind up getting lost in the soil. So I am punching a hole in them and twist tying them either to the tomato fence of any stakes I use. Also eliminating some of the bending over! And my parsley which I left in the ground all winter with no mulch is a huge patch already. Happy gardening!
So true, our best gardens are the ones where we are in it a little each day.