Weekend of May 18, 1996
This column is about your garden.
The writer—professional gardening editor/writer Dorinda Beaumont—
lives smack in the middle of our region—Rosendale.
So it’s about your zone, your soil, your plants.
Once a week Dorinda will chastise you, commiserate with you,
tell you what you absolutely can’t leave for another week,
all the while drawing inspiration from the daily journals she’s been
keeping for several years about her gardening experiences here in the Hudson Valley.
Things are growing fast this time of year. So let’s get right down to business.
VEGETABLES AND SMALL FRUITS
Continue to pick asparagus as long as the plants send up new shoots that are thicker than a pencil. Asparagus beetles are back; they have white spots on their backs and you’ll find them mating on the plants. Squish them. Rotenone is the least lethal poison that’s effective, if you want to take that tack.Pull the flowering stalks off rhubarb as they appear, as setting seed weakens the plants. The flowers make an amusing bouquet.
Thin early-planted salad greens as soon as the thinnings are big enough to eat.
Provide brush or twine trellises for peas (sweetpeas too) as soon as they are 4 inches tall. Having something to climb motivates them to get going.
Start melon, squash, and cucumber seeds in small pots indoors, for planting out at the end of the month or early June. They’ll get a bit of a jump, but will still be small enough to transplant well.
Next weekend might (depending on the weather) be a good time to start hardening off tender vegetable—tomatoes, peppers, even the very tender eggplants—by gradually exposing them to the sun and wind of the real world.
If you set out new strawberry plants this year, pinch off any blooms to strengthen the plants.
TREES, SHRUBS AND VINES
Prune early-blooming shrubs—forsythia, spireas (especially bridal wreath), flowering almond, Japanese quince—as soon as they finish flowering. Prune them only if they need it; if they’re just too big for the alloted space, it would be better to move them, rather than to try to confine any of these naturally graceful shrubs into dumpy little mounds.
Prune peach trees when they’re in bloom. I forget just what nasty organism enters cuts made in late winter, but there is one, so it’s better to wait until now to trim them.
Cut lilacs freely for bouquets and you’ll have less pruning to do next month. More about that then. Give them some lime now to help combat powdery mildew later.
Clematis would also appreciate some lime as well as some fertilizer now.
Check shrub and climbing roses and cut out any dead canes. Tie up the climbers and ramblers as they grow.
Containerized trees and shrubs abound at garden centers and may be planted now, although you’ll miss the first year’s bloom on the early stuff.
FLOWERS
Stake peonies right away, if you’ve not yet done so. The longer you wait, the more impossible it will become to keep those heavy blooms off the ground.
Dig and divide late-blooming perennials, espcially asters and chrysanthemums.
It’s not too late to divide daylilies except for early-blooming lemon lilies, which should wait until fall.
Buy new perennials. The garden centers are full of the biggest selection you’ll find all year. I know because I was out there today with the rest of the crowd, and what we didn’t buy will still be there tomorrow. I always cut back anything new I plant, but I have a friend who’s an excellent gardener who never cuts anything back. She also has better soil than mine, always gets a perfect haircut, and never thinks twice about moving a shrub that’s taller than she is.
So there’s a brief overview of some of the things that are good to be doing now. This morning felt as sultry as August, but the downpour tonight takes us back to early April. Tomorrow night’s temperatures are predicted to drop into the 30’s—a lesson in not trying to get too far ahead of the season. I’ll end with a warning that poison ivy is leafing out (Yes, you can get it from your cat.) and a promise to address annuals, tender bulbs, the pruning of evergreens, and more next week.
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