Other Entries: August 2007 September 2007 January 2008 March 2008 April 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008

May is a wonderful month, and not just because it is the anniversary of my being planted into the earth by my mother, twenty-five years ago. It is a wonderful month because things really start to get growing in May. The Tomatoes, Peppers, and Ground Cherries are finally freed from their coldframe prison, and allowed to burst forth into the warming spring air. The strawberries begin to produce little green fruits in May, which swell, slowly at first, then faster and faster as June approaches.

The first of the march-planted salad greens are harvested in May, as the peas begin to bloom. Towards the end of the month, the first pea pods appear on the vines, and are promptly plucked by yours truly, who can never seem wait for the first of the crop to swell and sweeten in their pods. I expect the pea harvest to begin slightly later than usual this year, on account of the cool, wet spring we've had. The first of the Laxton Progress Number Nine peas should be ripe somewhere around the end of June, and the harvest will continue through July, into early August.

Though slugs and snails have continued to be an annoyance this month, the damage they cause is rapidly being outpaced by the quick spring growth of their targets. I have now stopped all slug trapping operations for the year, as I find myself far too busy to regularly empty and re-bait the traps, and I'm not fully convinced that trapping is worth the effort once the plants have started growing quickly. Also, I left a few traps unchanged in the spring sun for a bit too long earlier this month. The smell produced by the anaerobic fermentation of slugs and snails is startlingly potent, and I don't recommend it to anyone.

I have begun to hill my potatoes. Though soil is traditionally used for this task, I prefer to disturb my soil as little as possible, in order to reduce erosion, and to foster healthy insect and microbe populations. For these reasons, I use coarse, unfinished compost and other organic debris to mound around my plants. Due to the fact that I stubbornly refuse to exclude coarse, woody materials from my compost piles, I am often left with a fair amount of partially-decomposed materials after I've screened-off the finished compost. This wood/unfinished compost mixture works very well for mounding around developing potato plants. I've also been experimenting with the use of flowering brassica plants for this purpose. In May, I tend to have far too many winter brassicas left in the ground. Though some are left to ripen seed for next years crop, many become redundant around this time of year, and are cut down to make way for different crops. I've taken to coarsely chopping up these flowering brassica plants and using them to hill some of my potatoes. I expect this will work very well.

While out and about, touring and working-in others' un-mulched vegetable gardens, I really begin to appreciate the mulch atop much of my own land. Though I do maintain several un-mulched beds, the majority of my beds are now maintained in the state I feel nature intended: With a blanket of partially-decomposed organic debris as the topmost layer, above the soil. In mulched beds, weeding is a minor task when necessary at all, and far less irrigation is required, as the mulch helps reduce evaporation, and holds water in the soil. As the hot, dry months of summer approach, I tend to appreciate my mulch more and more.

Everything is growing quickly now, and the first of many harvests have begun, and life is good.