The weather is warmer, the spring rains are nourishing the little plant babies (and washing the pollen away, a nice and welcomed side-effect) and the garden is starting to grow!  More to come in a full update in a couple of weeks, but the tomato plants are getting taller and sturdier, the blueberry bushes are showing berries already, and I’m tied in knots trying to decide which squirrel-repelling techniques to employ.  (Spray all day?  Cage the plants?  Water dish on the other side of the patio?  All of the above?)  May is a month for doing lots of upkeep, but not too much harvesting – yet.  Here’s what I’ve got on deck for the month (and some of the tasks are already completed, but who doesn’t like putting an already-done item on a to-do list just for the satisfaction of checking it off?):

• Plant the rest of my lavender, and the daffodil bulbs I picked up at Burnside Farms, in the front garden.
• Stay on top of weeding between the bricks on the back patio.  Take the weeds to the compost tent at the weekly market day instead of just throwing them in the trash.
• Start harvesting lettuce leaves and herbs as they’re ready.
• Prune dead leaves (how, already?) from the raspberry bush.
• Make a decision about whether the buttercrunch lettuce is staying in its current pots or moving somewhere else.  If somewhere else, figure out where that somewhere else is and then make it happen.
• Keep researching squirrel repulsion and (maybe?) come up with a plan.
• Bury my Beltane offering in the flower patch.

What are you up to in the garden this month?