MAY Organic Gardening

MAY Organic Gardening

http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-26-27-1214-6-1X2X3X4X5X6X7X8X9X10X11X12-13,00.html

May is the swinging door into summer and by the end of
the month, we'll all be roasting in Zone 7's summer
heat. Meanwhile, enjoy lovely spring flowers like
phlox, irises, roses, daylilies (and Trilliums an
maypops, down in the woods), and relish the harvest
from our spring gardens.

Clear Your Compost Bin. Make sure you've got an empty
compost bin to hold finished pansies, cleared-out
weeds, and any bags of leaves you decide to harvest
from the curb. I usually start a new worm bin about
this time, too.

Fill In Bald Spots. On any bare places in the garden,
sow a cover crop to build soil and out-compete weeds.
I like buckwheat and black-eyed peas as summer covers.

Sow and Transplant. You can sow or transplant beans,
black-eyed peas, Crowder peas, cantaloupe, squash,
melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweet corn, okra, hot
weather lettuce mixes, tropical greens, basil,
tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and sweet potatoes.

Crop Care. Harvest your cool season crops regularly,
keep them watered and weeded. When the snow peas show
signs of heat fatigue, you can dig them right into the
bed to enrich the soil, or contribute to the compost.

Flower Power. Now is the time for planting annual
flowers like asters, cleome, coreopsis, cosmos,
flowering tobacco, marigold, petunia, sunflower,
Tithonia ("Mexican sunflower") and zinnias (all
types). Continue setting out summer annuals like
begonia, geranium and petunia this month.

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