I finished planting the warmer weather items last week such as zucchini, cukes, pumpkins, yellow squash and our family's beloved white scallop squash. I am so happy its now all in. I also added tomato and pepper cages for added plant support. If you don't cage the plants they can topple over and the fruit will be on the ground where pests and other things can get to it easily and it can rot easier and quicker. With plants that are caged you can pick the fruit or veggie at its optimal freshness. So cage anything that gets tall and needs support.
Now its time to keep up on weeding. Be careful when weeding. Tomatoes, squashes, and others need you to be careful weeding. If you dig too deep for weeds it can damage the roots. I usually use my hands with gloves on and sometimes a weeding fork. But tread lightly. Its also easier to weed when the ground is slightly wet/moist. If its just rained but ok to walk in the garden without getting too muddy is the perfect time to pull weeds. The roots of the weeds give up easily in moist soil. In hard dry soil its next to impossible and you will have to use more back and arm power. And be careful not to harm your back bending over. Like my chiropractor tells me...."ice your back after any weeding"!
I am so happy to hear some of you are having gardens. Either gardening for the first time, first time gardening in years or you are a garden nut like me, ts a great way to have organic fresh food for your family to eat. So many chemicals are found in the foods in our stores --even foods that shouldn't have it or you would never think it. So sad that the tomatoes in the store look so nice and yummy because they spritz them with something to give it a shiny look so people will buy them. I fall for it too.
Even if you want more fresh garden produce than what your garden can hold you can always go to local park districts and rent a plot to plant more of a garden or there are farmers markets/ farms directly to get that fresh produce. One of the better farmer's markets in our area is the Woodstock Farmers market starts May 19th every Tues & Sat 8am-1pm. Farmers markets are usually starting in May or June (which is coming up soon!!). Some other good area good ones are Crystal Lake that starts 6/7 and is every Saturday from 8am-1pm. Barrington has a pretty good one too (and my friend Judy runs it:)) Barrington's starts 6/25 and is Thursdays from 2pm-7pm. There are also local farmers that have really great produce and you can go to them directly. Meyers Farms http://www.meyer-farms.com/ is a great local farm here in IL that you can go there and purchase directly or be apart of their CSA program where you purchase a share and get a box of foods every so often. Help us keep those farmers and farmers markets in business!! Walkup Heritage farms here in Crystal lake is good too. I see them at the farmers market. And there is Stade Farms http://stadesfarmandmarket.com/ up in McHenry that we always go to for strawberries!! Buy local!
Ok enough of my soap box.
Let me know if you have questions!
I look forward to tasting some of the results! :) :)
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