Best Garden Advice - May Day

Apricot
'Moorpark', a self-fertile and very hardy variety for the north.
Edible pod peas, 'Sugar Snap' planted on April 19. Good germination!


Radishes 'French Breakfast,' also planted on April 19.


Celery 'Tango' under glass along with Swiss Chard 'Prima Rosso'


My parsley 'Italian Flat Leaf' that made it through the winter.


Kale 'Tosca lacinato' or "Dino Kale"


Hardneck garlic planted last fall, 'China Purple Robe'.

It is easy to get discouraged in the garden. Consider my blog of yesterday and finding the disheartening cause of a few more brown needles than I would like to see on my Austrian Black Pine (picture added). Last year I lost a beautifully -shaped 4' tall burning bush (euonymus compactus) from rabbit damage.

My mother confided that she stopped vegetable gardening after losing her squash crop to late blight one summer, literally overnight.

One of my favorite blogs is by Marie, "66 Square Feet". She lives in New York City and gardens on a rooftop terrace that is 66 square feet in size. That's half the area I covered yesterday with a porous, black landscape fabric to warm soil in which I intend to plant "a few" tomatoes, melons, and peppers!

She talks about foraging some beach plums last this coming summer from trees currently in bloom under the Brooklyn Bridge. Yesterday, I had an espalier session with my Lapin cherry, a variety which produces a sweet cherry similar to Bing (of grocery store fame) which is not hardy though here in Zone 4.

I then moved on to Margaret Roach's blog, A Way To Garden, another good one. It should be, she used to be Martha's head garden writer. She is decidedly a good gardener in her own right and has the space to do it, unlike myself. She is blogging about May garden chores on this May Day.

These two gardens bookend mine in size and mostly zone. One is written by Marie, a fairly observant gardener, but no where near the knowledge level I am guessing Roach may be hiding up her proverbial sleeve. In this way, they probably bookend me as well. Reading their blogs this morning, I did realize a couple things. One, gardening is a VERY local event. Two, everywhere on the internet we tend to use the words "varieties suited to your conditions," or "heat-tolerant varieties," or "cold tolerant varieties". That word "varieties" pops up again and again, without telling us the very important part! What is actually going to grow for us.

So, it has made me think very closely about how I will attempt to blog this growing season. I will make every attempt to include how a particular variety does for me here actually growing in the ground and containers in Zone 4.

I am hoping I can provide some tips, and good garden advice, and maybe come up with some things that you have not heard of that dramatically improve your gardening experience. These are times when all of us, good gardeners and wannabes alike need to excel at developing our self-sufficient gardening skills in uncertain economic times to not only feed our families, but connect us to the greening of our world.

Today's humour!

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Best Practices in the Vegetable Garden

Picture of the Day: last year's parsley!

It's not dead, until it's warm and dead!

Working in the garden yesterday, I uncovered last year's parsley. Parsley is not perenial here. It sure looks alive though. I guess I can hope.

Over the last couple years I have been trying to come up with the best practices and best seed selections for vegetable gardening in central Wisconsin. If you have any ideas or something that worked really well for you I am interested in hearing about it. I believe the best gardeners are observant gardeners.

I saw someone was looking for information on whether thunderstorms are good for the flower and vegetable garden. Our "air" is like 70% nitrogen (according to my chemistry-nut son). (Regardless, of whether he has his percent right, it is a big percentage.)

When it drizzles and gently rains for a long period during a day, it is gently bringing that nitrogen down to the soil so it is accessible to your plants. It is not your imagination that everything seems greener after a gentle spring rain. It is not only having all the moisture they need, but the extra nitrogen which is responsible for greening up foliage.

The flip side of rain is when it is torrential, it pushed the nitrogen down through the soil and away from the plants and their roots. I've seen corn, a big nitrogen lover, go from a nice blue green to a sickly yellow green after a period of excess and torrential rains. I'm sure many of you have seen corn that was fairly yellow looking in standing water or flooded areas.

So if it is nice gentle rains, like I imagine they typically have in Britain, it's all good. Those torrential rains we have had often the last few years in the Midwest, not so good.