In the Garden This Week: It's Time to Plant!

It's time! May 15th is normally considered the last frost date for southern Rhode Island, and now it is time to (if you haven't already) get down to serious work in your gardening. Local garden centers are bursting with plants of all gorgeous colors and potentials. It is an awe-inspiring experience to go to a local garden center and explore! For gardeners, this is the most wonderful time of the year. 

If you are a flower gardener, the perennials should be well on their way. My 25-year old tree peony has been spectacular (see photo). And now it is time to begin to seek out or to seed those annuals with great color combinations.

Or if you are a vegetable gardener (and who can resist the taste later on of freshly-picked vegetables), hopefully peas, spinach, radishes, carrots, lettuce and potatoes should be well along by now. In my garden all of those were planted the last few days of March. Currently my 62 potato plants are about 8 to 10" tall and thriving in this weather which has been perfect for them.

For the proper time to plant most vegetables visit the Web site of the URI Outreach Center ("www.uri.edu/cels/ceoc") and click on the "RI Planting Calendar" in the middle of the homepage. By the way, this website has lots of valuable gardening information on it and you should explore it regularly.

Of course, it is also important that you get your lawn or garden soil tested to determine what will grow best. If you haven't done it this year you can bring a cup of soil (dried overnight on newspaper) to our Master Gardener Soil Test and Gardening Information Kiosk at Paradise Park in Middletown. Master Gardeners are there from noon until 2 each Sunday.

Enjoy your gardening chores. Think of it as fun, not work and you will quickly be rewarded with a greatly enhanced look of your property.

This week at Paradise Park (Paradise and Prospect Avenues) in Middletown, in addition to soil testing, the URI Master Gardeners will once more provide a short talk on useful hints for having a good, healthy lawn. The kiosk will be from noon till 2 and the talk on lawncare will be at 1:30. Join us!

Also the Middletown Historical Society Museum is scheduled to be open from 2 to 4 at the Park. Be sure to check out their photographic display on early gardening in Middletown.