Happy May, Garden Friends!
After an incredibly long dry spell, we finally have rain! Mother Nature always keeps us on our toes, but she's been awfully stingy on the rain side of things. The plants are soaking it all up, with lots of blossoms popping and the first mini harvest coming in.
A lot of things are still small; however, we're getting our first taste of spring by way of the snow peas. We just got our first few nibbles off the vine. The flowers seemed to take a while to pop, but now both varieties of snow peas and the sugar snap peas are blossoming like crazy. We are looking forward to having more than just a bite here and there soon.
In a similar category, the beans are just starting to flower, as well. The pinwheels seem to be keeping the squirrels at bay thus far, though we'll see once these cuties start pushing out actual delicious little beans. I've been dreaming about fresh green and yellow wax beans!
Next up, the zukes are coming! No surprise here. The weather has been a little cool with the much-needed rain, but I imagine once it warms up just a bit more the squash will take off like it normally does. In the photo above, you can just start to see the first fuzzy little fruit.
The tomatoes are currently a mixed bag. The larger varieties I planted are slowly but surely growing. A few have pushed out the first flowers. The cherry tomato varieties, however, have not made it to even an inch tall.
Luckily we have a long growing season, so I just planted some more seeds to see if we can turn around our current luck with the little beauties since we love them as a snack!
Given the recent cooler weather, I've kept some of the cucumber seedlings and watermelons in the greenhouse for a few more days. I planted out some cukes already that are hanging on, but I wanted to hedge my bets in case some of these last cooler nights take out those I've already planted out. I should know better by now that cukes don't like cold feet, but I just get too excited sometimes when I'm planting, haha!
On the fruit side of things, we've had some disappointments. In part because of the draught conditions, our poor figs got attacked by ambrosia beetles again! We had to cut one of the trees all the way to the base. Sweet little tree is already coming back strong, but I don't think we'll get any figs this year.
To balance out that loss, I was absolutely ecstatic to find our very first blossoms on the persimmon tree! This little tree has seemed to take forever to grow. We could tell this year it finally had some nice growth in the main trunk and lots of branches and leaves. The flowers were a big surprise, and I can only hope we get at least a small harvest since I adore fresh persimmons.
Aren't those blossoms the cutest??!!
The plum trees are looking very promising, too, and I continue to be surprised that the nectarines are holding on to quite a bit of fruit despite the two trees we planted two years ago being quite juvenile. As with the plums last year, I won't be surprised if we don't get more than a few to enjoy this time around. They sure are cute, too, though.
It doesn't matter how many seasons we garden or watch the process unfold--it truly is a small miracle watching things grow.
We've got a few more things growing, but I'll finish out this month's update with the elderberry bush. This beast continues to explode. I haven't done much with either the flowers or berries yet (the birds ate almost all of the berries last year), so I need to start thinking about a plan for how I may want to use them this year. I'm leaning towards doing something with the flowers since the birds are so greedy with the berries!
Any elderflower recipes are welcome. ;)
This time of year still requires some patience as everything ramps up, but this time next month should be a big difference all around the yard! Wishing all my fellow gardeners more ups than downs, and I can't wait to see your progress this season, too.
Happy gardening!
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