First Week of May in the Ontario Garden

Beginning of May and the sunshine is much appreciated after all of this grey, cool rain. I thought March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, not lion/lamb/summer/lamb/lion/May. Fun with weather pattern shifts and hiccups.

I’ve been dreaming about rose gardens, but the potager has to come first. Too many balls in the air … and some on the ground … and under the bushes …

Snow in May is not completely unheard of, but I am thinking of pushing it a little and trying to get some things into the garden under cover. Peppers would hate me for the most part, but some don’t seem to mind a little cool weather in what I’ve read so maybe they can go out, middle of Mayish. 

The early tomatoes are huge so they will be out in the next week or two if I can and the weather looks like it will cooperate. The 14 day forecast isn't awful. Should I chance it? You know me, might as well try and see what happens, there are always more seeds. 

The 5 types of Basil for sure will wait for the ground to sufficiently dry up and warm up. We have quite a bit of clay in this soil and it is soggy and cold right now. Not a happy place for basil. And they have plenty more room to grow.

Our grape vine survived the winter and has buds on it. Yay! My neighbour’s cherry tree is blooming but the apples haven’t started blooming yet here. The service berries are covered and should be opening up soon. And the currant bushes look like they may actually produce some fruit this year.

Left: Currant blossoms; Top Right: Serviceberry blossoms ready to open; Bottom Right: Bacco Noir grape vine I planted last year and actually survived the winter and has buds on it.

My nannyberry has leaves but no blooms yet this year. And I think I might have killed my ninebark moving it around too much. I finally found the right place for it but it may not have survived the transplant, or the chickens. We’ll have to see.   

Apple blossoms opening are the right time to plant bush beans and sunflowers. Between the seeds I bought, the seed swap and my sister I have several varieties of both. 

I’m re-sowing the Tongue of Fire and Orca seeds that I saved from lasts year’s plants. The Orca didn’t produce enough to eat but enough for seeds and we enjoyed the Tongue of Fire fresh, pickled and dried. 

I’m also sowing Dragon Tongue, a lovely purple striped bean and Broad beans from the seed swap. I gave my Jade bush beans to my Mum for her to try. 

As for sunflowers I have sunflower sp?, Russian Mammoth, Mammoth, Blackoil, and Hopi Black Dye sunflower, which I’m really excited about. 

The Mammoth sunflowers should be perfect to work as climbing structures for the pole beans. Funny enough I’ve read contradictory information on whether you should even grow beans up sunflowers. Some suggest it, others say that they are allelopathic (producing one or more biochemicals that influence the germination, growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the target organisms and the community.) 

So who’s right? Another experiment in the making. 

Those who say that the beans and sunflowers negatively impact each other suggest to grow peas or cucumbers up them instead. Also it seems that if you are using the sunflowers as bean poles you have to allow them to get to about 8 inches tall before you sow the beans in the ground, and this is when the sunflowers could negatively impact the germination of the beans. Pole beans aren’t sown until the apple blossoms fall so I’m not sure exactly how tall the sunflowers will be by then. Blossoms fall faster with heat, rain, wind, so many variables for how long they will last. 

I’m going to try to grow at least one of my Mexican Sour Gherkins up a sunflower and I’ll try some of the pea seeds I have left over from the Golden Snow and Blue Podded Capucijners. And then when the blossoms fall we’ll try some of the beans up the sunflowers and up tripods and see who grows the best and produces the best. I shall have to write a little monograph I suppose. 

I’m seeing lots of buds on the lilacs so depending on the weather they should be blooming soon too. That opens up the right time for sowing squash and many of my potager flowers like: cosmos, marigolds, sweet annie and alyssum. I started some marigolds early and other I will sow directly. I will probably sow more nasturtium directly as well because I really enjoyed them last year. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Let’s take a deeper dive into the more clamant seeds. 

Beans and sunflowers coming up.