Our last frost date has moved up several weeks since I was younger. Growing up, we wouldn’t think of planting out seedlings until Memorial Day weekend. Today, cold tolerant plants can come out towards the beginning of May. Frosts can still, occur, however, and I lost a whole batch of beautiful seedlings due to my eagerness to get things outdoors.
I had Chinese broccoli, rapini, kale, and sorrel ready to go, but 20 degree temps around Mother’s Day did them in, despite being sheltered in a portable greenhouse. With everything else I had already planted, I didn’t attempt any more. All that considered, though, they looked healthy and gorgeous so I’m definitely going to start some later in the summer for fall planting.
The tomatoes, squash, and peas I started indoors were moved outside earlier in the month. The tomatoes began being placed in the ground mid-month. I finished getting everything else in the ground last weekend.
I honestly can’t tell if the peas I started indoors are doing any better than the ones I started outside several weeks earlier. I kind of feel like the ones that went through the frost underground are hardier and doing better than the ones I began inside! They have flowers on them so fingers cross, peas will happen soon!
I have already staked 3 of my cherry tomatoes using a Florida weave and have also removed suckers from them twice! I’m going to attempt to clone some of them with some of the suckers I’ll have to remove later on this month. I love testing out new techniques.
One teepee of peas I planted caught a blight and had to be removed.
Otherwise nearly everything is doing really well.
I’m very glad to have so many irises this year. I had moved them around in 2022 and didn’t have any blooms last year. They’re doing exceptionally well in 2024! I will have to remove some of the babies toward the end of the season. That’s how dense the flower bed is!
Regularly harvesting rosemary, oregano, mint, and green onions has been an absolute joy. I haven’t started any radishes yet (whoops!) and I’m way behind on planting beans as well. My lettuces should be getting ready to cut down, though.
My goal for this year is to get more perennials and biennials established. I see a lot of trips to the big box store in my future.
Recovering from the construction from February is going pretty well, too! The grass in the yard is patchy but it is growing back, thanks to a lot of hard work from Chris. He’s also building us a concrete patio and steps to replace the old wooden porch that the contractor removed when digging the trench to install the sewer line.
The only thing I’m having a serious challenge with is setting up a more private area for us to use outside. Our neighbor is going to help us remove a dilapidated tree on the side of our house. It will give the garden more sun and will make it easier to put up some privacy screens for an area for our grill and patio table, etc.
Thank you for catching up with me on my garden projects today! How are your plantings going? Leave me a comment below or reply to one of my social media posts with your experiences!
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