More Good Gardening Week!

Welcome back! I'm glad you could stop by.

It's Monday evening (May 16) and  we're having tremendously heavy rain here in Lancaster, along with some lightning. I'm guessing that we've already received two inches of rain since 5:00 p.m. It's just about 6:00 p.m. now. Way more rain than we need, that's for sure. We'll have to go out and check the garden for damage after it stops. The sound of sirens is coming from all directions - thankfully, none are heading directly here, but there are clearly some serious problems happening in the city and surrounding areas.

The Tuesday morning newspaper confirms that we did have 2 inches of rain in a very short time last night. There was serious street flooding in Lancaster. Our garden is totally saturated and we may be on track to get another 2 - 3 inches of rain in the next few days. Most of the garden damage was minor - some well smashed radish plants and some broken iris flowers. For the most part, things are in pretty good shape. The picture above shows a street scene a few blocks from our home. (Credit Jaime Cruz, Lancaster Newspapers)

But, back to more pleasant things....like the good gardening weather we had last week. Some of our strawberries are beginning to ripen. For those of you who would like to grow strawberries, but don't have garden space, take heart. Strawberries grow well in containers. Some of the very largest strawberries we picked last year came from the plants in the container shown below.  They require very little care except for regular watering and feeding.

The beets loved last week's sunshine and continue to do well. A second batch we've planted is coming along a little more slowly due to the sun not reaching their area until about 11:00 a.m.. They remain in a sun field until sundown, however.

The blackberry plants have begun flowering.  We should be picking some large sweet fruit in early July.

One of the asparagus asparagus plants has escaped its "reservation" and jumped into bed with the sugar snap peas. I've been told that asparagus don't like competition, but perhaps that isn't true.

Silver maples may be large, beautiful, stately trees, (50' tall with 30' spread) but they are extremely messy in the spring. The picture below shows our neighbor's backyard parking pad, approximately 20' x 20'. You can see the number of seeds his tree has dropped in just two days....many thousands of them. The seeds extend out into the bright sunlight area of the picture and can be found all along that lane. All of the surrounding yards are well covered, too. Our yard and garden areas have thousands, as well, carried to us on just the slightest of breezes. We will be pulling the tree seedlings out of the soil for months.   Just something to remember if you're ever considering a silver maple.

I hope to see you again in a few days with more gardening updates!