It’s after May 10th! There are LOTS of things you can do in your garden now.
First, you can now safely plant warm-season veggies like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and corn, and plant squash, cucumbers, melons, and beans directly in the ground. It’s also time to think about what to do with the rest of your cool-season veggies, like peas, broccoli, and greens, as they’ll begin to deteriorate as the weather gets warmer. You can eat a lot (mixing broccoli into your scrambled eggs for breakfast, or freeze them.
Break Out Your Pruning Shears
Now is also the time to prune your spring-blooming shrubs as soon as they have finished blooming. Shrubs like forsythia, azaleas, lilacs, rhododendrons, etc., bloom next spring on this summer’s growth. It’s also a good time to “deadhead” any roses or perennials that have begun blooming to make room for more summer flowers.
Daily Garden Checks
This is also the time to begin to check your garden every few days for potential trouble like clusters of eggs on the back of the leaves. It’s a whole lot easier to prevent a problem than to deal with one after it’s developed. And one thing to think about, if you’ve ever been bothered with cucumber beetles, you can actually plant your cukes at the end of May, since cucumber beetles hatch hungry mid-May.
Top Dress With Fertilizer
Now is a good time to top dress with fertilizer, since the weather is warmer and the days so much longer. And, for the fun of it, you can now begin to set your lawn mower to 3 to 4 inches so you’ll have a lush green velvety lawn again.
Let’s Not Forget The Water
Do remember that your just planted new veggies or flowers have much smaller roots this early in the season, so they will need to be watered a bit more often.
Happy Planting!