May Showers

We have had one of the rainiest May's on record... and it is only May 6th. Seriously, last night, we had more rain fall then is typical for the entire month.

Of course, it all happened an hour after I had just sprayed all of my plants with a fungicide...  Oh well, I'll always choose rain!  Here is my early May Garden update.




After all of the hustle and bustle in May, these last few weeks are a bit of a slow down.  Everything is in the ground.  

The blackberries are on the vine, and even turning a bit purple, but nothing is close to ready to eat yet. The holes in the leaves have definitely not gotten worse, leading me to believe that it really was a fungus, and serenade was the cure.  The iron doesn't seem to be helping much with the light green color. The bottom leaves are darker, but the top ones are still light green, despite multiple applications of Maxicrop Seaweed with Iron.

The tomatoes are on the plant, and have been for weeks, but nothing is turning red!  Looking on, if I have too many tomatoes, that can inhibit them turning red.  If the weather gets above 85 degrees, that can inhibit it as well. And looking back at my notes, the harvest time, based on when I planted them, was May 2 - May 25, so maybe I am being a tad bit impatient?

The fungus seems to be getting worse.  I sprayed again with Serenade last night, but then the rain came.  And there is a potential for more this evening. Not sure what to do here.

The carrots should have been harvested two weeks ago.  We pulled up the largest one yesterday, and it was large enough to eat, so I think the others are just a week or so behind. I pulled this one today, just to see, it he looks pretty good as well.  I just purchased a bunch of carrots at the store this week. Maybe I should have waited?

Onions are getting. We pulled one up last week to use.  It was small, but big enough.  I have mid-May as my harvest date, but I'm thinking I might pull them a bit early.

Cucumbers are blooming, but no sign of itty bitty fruit yet.  Any day now.

Tomatillos are blooming, but I know from experience that they don't fruit until it gets hot... really hot. So I am not expecting anything this month. Last year, one of the gardeners at NG told me that the plant will produce more if you clip the long runners. They then bush more.  I tried clipping one stalk as an experiment. It worked for the blackberries, so maybe for the cucumbers too?

Melons are small, but have a few blooms.  I am going to try chopping these vines as well in a few weeks.

And the zucchini is in bloom, but no fruit. I can't help but looks at these stalks and wonder if there are already vine borers nested in there, just waiting to destroy my plant???

And the sweet potato slips, which were entirely deforested (I am guessing by my neighborhood Bunny) have started to leaf out and grow!  I really thought these were goners.  They must be super tough.

The asparagus is showing little balls on it. I read somewhere that female asparagus plants have them, and the males don't. Well anyway, I have two plants with them. Dave is looking into how to fertilize them and get them to grow.  It sounds like it takes a good year, before you can plant them, and then three years before they produce. Patience....

Oh - and I have a jalapeno.. or at least I think it is a jalapeno.  It looks a  little big to me. I can already taste this guy stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. Yum!!!