Good evening and welcome to May. We hope that you are enjoying the nice weather. Since it’s the first of May, we are going to continue with the gardening tips that we have been posting on the first of each month.
Gardening Tips for May
- Dead-head your tulips
- Mow your lawn when it gets to 3 or 4 inches. Set your mower to 2.5 – 3”
- Don’t mulch until your soil’s warm
- Plant beans, carrots, corn, and lettuce
- When lilacs, plant your tomatoes. Give the plants magnesium by sprinkling a tsp of Epsom salts in the hole.
- Plant marigolds, nasturtiums, and zinnias around and in flower beds and vegetables. This will repel insects. Plant your gladiolas at 2-week intervals.
- Weed any dandelions. This will stop them from flowering and seeding.
- Fertilize any of your bulbs that have come up
- Stake your tall-growing plants such as peonies before they’re too big.
- Cut back your tall perennials such as phlox and bee balm for height control
- Harvest your rhubarb. Grab it at its talk’s base and then pull it firmly away from its crown, twisting it a bit. Make sure that you’re throwing its leaves into your compost since they’re poisoning.
- Prune the shrubs that bloom in the spring when the flowers fade.
- Deadhead lilacs
- Check your lilies for leaf beetles (red lily) and crush them to dispose of the beetles.
- Deadhead your bulbs too. Leave their foliage, but remove spent heads.
- If slugs chew your hostas, combine 9 parts of water to ammonia, then spray it right before dark. When slugs reach this, they’ll dissolve.
- Check your fruit trees for signs of tent caterpillars. When the leaves come out, the caterpillars will too. If it’s necessary to spray using insecticide, you want to wait for blooming to be done so that you protect honeybees.
- Annuals shouldn’t be planted before May 30th.
Thank you for taking the time to read our blog about May gardening tips. Have a great day!
