Well, one does not have to be prescient to have predicted that the warmer weather was soon to be here, but it showed up on the heels of my last post! Highs in the nineties, and windy! Oh well, we had great run, didn’t we? I hope you did get out there and enjoy the expanded version of Spring here in North Carolina. I sure did! As a  Gardener it is my privilege to have my main office outdoors, where I daily see, feel and smell the wonders of nature, and, as noted previously, I have been really enjoying all the fine weather, gorgeous flowers and sweet secents wafting through each day. Now it is time to say goodbye to the softer Season, and get ready for the warm Season. We need to be more disciplined and mindful of watering, get our mulches down, pick bouquets before the rainstorms knock off the petals, and pluck as many berries as we can before we lose them to ants, slugs and bunnies! Cages or other structures need to be set up around our tomatoes. Climbing veggies need tying up as they stretch and grow.  As the weather warms, we also need to be aware of the new crops of little bugs that set up shop and proceed to diminish the beauty of our young Gardens: Spider mites, slugs and snails, caterpillars. Let’s use the least toxic methods first – Insecticidal soaps for the Spider mites (remember to spray the undersides of the leaves, where they live), small saucers of cheap beer for the slimy ones, or half-grapefruit rinds left out for them to gather beneath, that you casually dump into the compost. The furry predators of our Pumpkin patch can be kept at bay with dog hair, stinky sprays or, my new favorite, Plantskyyd natural repellent! It is made of natural porducts, does not have a lingering scent, and only needs to be applied four times a year!

    Water your Garden deeply, my friends. Eat well of that which you grow, and sleep peacefully knowing that you are bringing a small piece of Heaven to earth!