A Mucky May Delays Gardening

Rain, rain rain! In heavy, muddy, sticky soil, what can one do? Admire the yearly miracle of the "green conversion," for one thing. From the brown boredom of the sleeping winter garden to the vivid dormant-breaking green of the trees, shrubs, and fast-emerging perennials--this is a yearly fiesta of gardener's joy. 

Weeding, which is a sisyphean task, starts with "controlling the borders:" going around the property to remove incoming and outgoing weed nuisances. These include such torturers as garlic mustard, Asian honeysuckle, bindweed, porcelain berry vines, seeding sedges, and the usual cast of nuisance weeds. They are all talented at spreading, seeding, and growing with more rapidity than the "real" plant lovelies I am trying to grow.

Mini-nurseries---small troughs of kohlrabi,  beet, chard, and cabbage seeds started in homemade compost and leaf mold---are growing in their beds awaiting their eventual transplanting. May 19th I bought  summer vegetable plants (tomatoes, peppers and eggplant) with a retirement gift card to Behnke's Nursery---thank you Steve and Christine!

Then there are my "cageless pets:" garter snakes, a new litter of rabbits, the fox family and endless birds---dropping in for visits or staying as permanent residents. It's my 11th year in this garden, and it is my Giant Backyard Pleasure Ground. 

Five weeks late, May 24th, I began to put  the "tropical" vegetables from Behnke's Nursery into the ground. Seeds for cucumbers, summer squash, and bitter melon next were planted around May 26-27, along with supports, mulch, compost, and the wonderful flat soaker hoses I bought last September.  Three big projects remain for my edibles: putting in the okra beds, transplanting all of the cabbage, kohlrabi, beets and chard seedlings, and bird- and deer-proofing the thornless blackberry hedges.

And then, there is weeding.

Enjoy the pictures---especially the last one!

Calycanthus floridus: the blooms smell like freshly-baked bread.

The "Blue Period:" amsonia flowers

Dwarf mulberry: even as the new leaves emerge, so do the June/July mulberries.

 

Clambering clematis, as the lavender and purple period begins.

A friend gave us a bunch of green onions, which are beautiful as they get ready to go to seed.

Iris which Donna brought from Colorado to Minnesota to Virginia to Silver Spring Maryland!

Baptisia spikes---a precious native perennial.

Part of my milkweed collection---to attract monarch butterflies.

Swamp milkweed--in center--which are competing with too-prolific violets.

In go eggplants, peppers, beans and tomatoes! No--there are no dead bodies buried here.

This ghostly covering is protecting the eggplants from the vicious flea beetles.

The plastic forks pointing outward are supposed to keep the rabbits from nibbling the seedlings. I hope it works!

Straw protects tomato plants from being splashed with fungus-laden soil when it rains. But they all get fungus infections anyway.

Cabbage seedlings ready to transplant. This variety is about the size of a softball, and is sweet and crunchy.

Oozy and sexy: worms mating. I knew how it was done, but never saw it before. Enjoy!