I’m a little late with this post, but better late than never!

May was a warm month this year. The average temperature was 7C warmer than last year, and the evenings stayed warmer throughout the month. There was more sun and less clouds. It was certainly noticeable in the garden. With the weather being so nice, we felt we were behind in getting a lot of our plants into the garden, when in actuality, we were earlier than most years.

This year we were able to harvest some items earlier than we have ever harvested, so it was clearly a warmer spring this year. To be fair, our earliest date, May 10, was leftover onions from the fall that we missed. I might actually plant some onions late in the fall this year, just so that we can get an earlier harvest in the spring next year. It was surprising to see them pop right up amongst some of the weeds.

Despite those onions being unplanned, we still would have had our earliest harvest year this year with our strawberries. Our wild driveway strawberries are usually our first harvest of the season. This year they were our third of the season, with the first harvest on May 17. Previously, the earliest we had ever harvested was May 21 in 2021. We will see how the overall harvest shapes up. Hopefully they have a slightly longer growing season and produce lots of little sweet berries. They may be small but they pack a punch!

We did put in new everbearing strawberries this year in a patch in the new section of garden. We figured that they wouldn’t produce for a while due to being transplanted, but they seemed quire happy to be in their new home and immediately started flowering. Our harvest numbers should actually be quite a bit higher, but we were delayed in creating a cage over the berries to keep the birds out, so we lost quite a few to the magpies. They are now producing regularly and with big, beautiful berries that are red all the way through. You just can’t beat home-grown strawberries.

The other surprise harvest has been our rhubarb. Although it was a well established plant, we did transplant it this year. I thinned it out for the first harvest, which was on May 6. By far the earliest we have ever harvested. After transplanting, it had a few sad looking days, but then popped right up and started sending out new shoots like crazy. We have harvested and shared with friends because of the amount we have been pulling from it.

Overall, it has been a good start considering I have had a rough year with so many of the seeds that I bought from the one company. I am continuing to be disappointed by all the plants I have grown from those seeds and will not be purchasing that brand of seeds again. We will have to see how the season pans out. For now, I am happy watching everything grow.