Eve Boe, Garden Notes Editor  

Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce 

May!  Even if not aware of it on a conscious level, once May arrives it suddenly seems my whole being has been waiting for this singular moment. Warmth suffuses everything: the air, the soil, the stones underfoot. Frogs are singing in the pond. Tractors are moving down the road. My ears are tuned to catch the first rhythmic thrumming roar of the lime trucks speeding down the highway. The new-turned soil in the fields lies velvety soft and the now-warm rains skate lightly across the valley. The nursery is over-flowing with color and bursting at the seams. The fruit trees have been blooming and the bees are at work. As the blooms fade you can already begin to detect which flowers have been pollinated and whether a fruit will form. Look closely at the green bulge just under where the petals attach and compare. In unpollinated flowers this "ovary" will be a dull blanched color, but in those pollinated it will be a bright green and begin to swell as the petals fall away.

• The microbial life in the soil is getting very active now, assisting in the breakdown of organic matter into forms able to be taken up by plants. All the compost and nutritional amendments you incorporate into the soil now will be feeding these millions and billions of microscopic beings, helping your soil to become rich and loamy. Turning the soil - even if it's just in the bare spaces of a planted bed - and letting some of that surface organic matter (bark, compost, old leaves, coffee grounds) drift down deeper into the soil structure and opening channels for oxygen to penetrate, will aid in all the beneficial microbes proliferating rapidly. Alleviating the soil compaction and stratification that can set in over time will work miracles in creating the right environment for healthy plants.      
• Resist the temptation to rake away all the old leaves and detritus back in under the shrubs and trees. These undisturbed areas are rich feeding grounds for the birds, especially in spring when food sources can still be scarce and all those over-wintering insects and pupae are prime sources of protein.       
• As bulbs fade, remember that the leaves are still needed for a while for photosynthesis to store food for next year's flowers. If you clip the foliage by 50% it can still perform this function, but will not look so straggly. These bare spots are wonderful for poking in annuals, which will be showy all summer and tend to have rather meager roots that won't engulf the dormant bulbs as perennials would.      
• If your peonies have a tendency to flop, observe closely this year whether they are getting enough hours of sunlight.  Maybe it would be worth moving them next winter?  In the meantime, positioning cylindrical (tomato-cage-like) supports around them early helps them look their best as they fill out. Attempting support belatedly most often results in the plant looking cramped and bound instead of graceful and arching.      
• Give your strawberry patch a nutritional boost during blossoming. Prilled forms of a natural fertilizer are very easy to work with, and make their way down amongst the leaves cleanly. A light lofty straw mulch applied now will cause leaf and berry stems to elongate toward the light, so that the berries form high and dry and away from the soil. This straw can be removed or disbursed after harvest so it doesn't become a haven and breeding ground for slugs.      
• It is time now to put in the warm-weather vegetable crops. Feel the soil! It is not just a figure of speech; it's actually warm to the touch! Many of these crops can be direct-seeded, but get used to taking note of the "days to maturity" on the seed packets. Those needing longer seasons of warmth than we have here in Skagit Valley might need to be started in a greenhouse.  Many of the wonderful pepper varieties (both sweet and hot) will require this. Sometimes direct-seeding is possible or preferable, but heat-trapping row covers will make all the difference. Melons, which transplant poorly, do well this way.      
• Think about your trellising for peas and beans before they start elongating.  Some snap peas can be 7 feet tall and some pole beans reach 15 feet.  Indeterminate tomato varieties, likewise, can get big and quickly overwhelm inadequate support systems.  

Enjoy every day!  

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

Gardening friends, Cora Zoberst and Janice Martin, at the Komo Kulshan Rhododendron Society Flower Show, held at the Nursery on April 28, 2012