gardening tasks for may

It’s the merry month of May! It’s late spring, but it feels like summer’s come too early here in Central Florida.

Anyhoo, I’m thinking of my gardening TO DO list for this month. And I’ve got plenty. I wonder if I’ll be able to check off every single task on this list come June...

So, here’s what’s up for my vegetable gardening efforts this month:

1. Plan for late summer planting—inventory seeds, buy them before June comes around, and store them in the refrigerator. I plan to have: corn, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, radish (in containers), asparagus yardlong beans (pole), bok choi, pak choi, Napa cabbage, spinach, Kentucky Wonder beans (pole), tatsoi mustard, and Spanish onions.
2. If I’m going to add crops to my spring garden for summer, plant heat-tolerant vegetables.  Cherry tomatoes, check. Hot peppers, check. Okra, check. Sweet potatoes, check. Calabaza, hmmm...let me rethink that. The one I had last season didn’t do well. Ditto with the chayote, which sprouted but didn’t follow through on the promise of growth. My bad, I believe, since it’s the first time I tried growing it. (I was thoroughly disappointed, because it’s my favoritest vegetable, too, next to patola — or luffa, in English, heh.)
3. Sow bush beans in the empty space beside the zucchinis.
4. Sow catnip then plant them right next to the vegetable garden. I need an organic deterrent to those pesky summer mosquitoes, ugh!
5. Transplant banana peppers into clay containers and situate them in the vegetable garden.
6. Solarize beds that won’t be used for the summer. I doubt if there’ll be an empty one though. The burning heat didn’t stop me from starting my experimental vegetable garden last year. I don’t think it’ll be any different this year.
7. Mulch beds...and this time, get around to doing it. This task has been in my To-Do list for months now. The leaves for mulching are already decomposing, for goodness’ sake!
8. Thinking about purchasing lady bugs for aphid control. I’ve been nuking these tiny monsters every day with my pepper spray. They positively lurve my asparagus yardlong beans—the type of beans that my family can’t absolutely do without—so I’ve been taking extra care to keep these veggies healthy...no matter what! If I can’t get the lady bugs, well, I’ll have to stick with my pepper spray.
9. Fertilize vegetable beds with organic plant food. Use specialty fertilizer for tomatoes, to keep them productive. And do this ASAP! My problem right now is that I have lush greens but scarce fruits and flowers on my tomatoes. 

Additionally, I have cuttings-in-waiting and other plants so I’ll have to take care of them, too.

1. Once the golden lantanas are ready, plant them out in the front yard, on the Brown Island. (The Brown Island is the barren bed that sits in front of my bedroom window.)
2. Make additional Mexican petunia cuttings for Cousin A for her front yard. She’s seen my robustly growing set and she wants hers, too, heh.
3. Replant Mexican heather, heliconia, variegated sweet iris, and the blue-flowered ground cover according to the new design for the Brown Island. 
4. Repot the avocado into a bigger, wider clay container.

There! I have my May gardening tasks listed down. The next thing on the agenda is the doing. I’ll have to see what tasks from this list will still await me in June. :)