May kicks garden season into high gear — nothing is really off-limits this month. Get out and dig into gardening before the summer heat arrives. Here  are a dozen suggestions you can start on if you haven’t already. Plant Warm-Season Veggies By month’s end, warm-season vegetables should be in the ground in all but the northern-most regions. This includes pepper, tomato, eggplant, squash, corn and cucumbers. Okra, black-eyed peas and melons are also on this list. Plant beans, too, growing several varieties so you have beans for fresh eating and drying. Direct sow seeds into the garden, or tuck in transplants. Once soil is warm, seeds quickly catch up with transplants. Look for Healthy Roots Healthy plant roots are white and fill the soil volume…

Gardening Tips We have had Spring all through March and now it is looking like we may be the last remnants of Winter for the start of April. So many of the garden tasks normally targeted for April may have already been completed. Successful gardening amounts to paying attention and following through with what needs to be done at any one time.  Regardless, here are some of the tasks for your garden which should be considered for April. Beware of insects and other pests in your garden. Keep an eye on your garden for aphids, spider mites, etc., and take action when necessary to eliminate the pests If you don’t have enough garden space, you can always create more by growing crops in pots! For example,…

I like to include some good alternative items among all of the supposed bigger topics. So here is October’s gardening to do list. Look for some other irrelevant items soon. This information is mostly complements of HGTV. I have tried to make this generally applicable to Northern Nevada but has good general information for most locations. If your area has unique issues to deal with, I suggest you contact HGTV or other gardening sites to get information that applies to your area. There are lots of other tasks that are not included here such repairing your raised bed planters, taking down and storing trellises used for vines or vertical vegetable gardens, getting the last of your tomatoes in before the first freeze, cleaning and storing…

Mostly borrowed from HGTV Plant Fall Annuals Watch for pansies at your favorite plant shopping spot and pick up enough to fill pots and planting beds. Fall-planted pansies stage a flower show all autumn long in most regions. In warmer zones, pansies deliver fresh-faced color through winter. Ideal temperatures for flower development are nights in the 40s F and days in the 60s F. In the landscape, avoid planting pansies where they’ll be exposed to road salt or standing water. A well-drained location is the secret to overwintering pansies, especially in regions where snow cover melts in spring. Pansies with medium-size flowers generally survive winter better than large-flowered varieties, a fact that’s most important in Zones 4 and 5. Replenish Mulch Give your landscape a refresh by…