Garden Bloggers Food Day

The average annual final frost date for me is said to be the 15th of May. That is when I can officially plant the warm season vegetables with a little less worry. Less worry, not no worry. Because what did it do today? It got cold. The high was barely sixty and the lows are going to be in the forties for several days. My warm season tomatoes, peppers and squash are not fond of the forties, particularly the squash.

But I am on a schedule here. I bought the starts when it was warmer and they were going to get planted no matter what.



Tomatoes and squash in a vegetable garden piled high with wood chip mulch. They do just fine thank you without any nitrogen loss issues. You might say I am good about adding a dash of manures as an organic fertilizer and nitrogen assist in the rows and each planting hole at planting time, until I run out of manures anyway. I need more manure to finish this year's vegetable garden.



All the purchased vegetable starts were planted, the bean poles were stood up and the remaining rows were raked clean of the wood chip mulch for seeding. A few weeds were pulled and a number of ripe, sweet and delicious strawberries were sampled as I moved about.

The day was getting old, the clouds were getting low and misty and the temperature was shrinking so I decided all the vegetables I will be seeding could wait for another day. Maybe I could seed one row each morning before going to work kind work. But before heading in I filled a sack with two kind lettuce, spinach and radishes. The roadside vegetable garden is already producing food.



May the 15th is noted for another special gardening event. It is the Garden Blogger's Bloom Day Miss Carol of May Dreams waits for all year and then is too busy trying to get everything done that needs doing in the garden to sit still and enjoy. Carol sit still for a moment or go for a walk with a beverage in your hand.

It is hard to take a picture anywhere around this mountain top with out a flower of some kind sneaking into the scene. The roadside vegetable garden's wildflower surround hasn't started blooming yet, but there are a few early performers to start things off.



The new clematis meant to climb on the fence is blooming. It's not climbing yet. I need to remember to add more soil to its raised planter box



And because my readers are so good to me there had to be some blooms for Bloom Day. We've got a few things blooming in the wild cultivated garden right now. May is a good month. Carol is right "to dream of the days of May when the sun is warm, the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the garden is all new again!"



The rhododendrons are looking good. This cool spell should help them last.



Speaking of food. I thought I'd go have one last look at the Showy Orchis only to find something had eaten it to the nub, flowers and all. I have a feeling it was a tall, brown, four legged varmint. In a world over flowing with lush the Showy Orchis gets eaten. It must be some kind of delicacy.



I don't think Miss Collar ate it.