What to grow in May
It’s here! The average final frost date has passed and the snow has been melting quickly off Shafer Butte. We’ve been planting warm season crops in our client’s gardens for a couple of weeks now, crossing our fingers for fair weather. Here’s what we’re growing in May in raised beds in Boise, Idaho.
Tomatoes
Everyone’s favorite summer crop. We divide tomatoes into three categories for our clients: cherries/grapes, slicers/salad and paste tomatoes. I love to grow cherry tomatoes because they’re easy to snack on in the garden and they’re wonderful to cook with, but I also always have an heirloom slicer tomato for BLTs and burrata salads. Often, I skip paste tomatoes in my garden and just buy them in 20# boxes at the end of the farmers market season to make sauce. If you make your own salsa weekly, though, I highly recommend Ten Fingers of Nepal as a wonderful, prolific paste tomato.
Peppers
Sweet, hot and frying peppers all go into our raised beds in Boise. These can be a challenge for some gardeners, so I try to conserve space by selecting 1-2 hot peppers, 2-3 frying peppers (shishito or Basque) and 4-6 sweet picnic peppers per raised bed. I love the picnic peppers because they produce small, prolific little peppers that are great for snacking, versus waiting around forever for the big bells to grow and change color.
Winter Squash and Summer Squash
All of our gardens have 1-2 summer squashes (zuchinni or yellow squash) and 3-4 winter squashes (pumpkins, gourds, etc.) at minimum. I love the odd varieties of summer squash, such as patty pan or zephyrs, and for winter squash, I love to grow all the sweet pie varieties and some decorative gourds for fall decor. Some folks ask me when winter squashes grow, and it’s all summer long!
Melons and Cucumbers
Cucumbers are my absolutely favorite home garden vegetable. They taste so great fresh and you can grow fun varieties at home. My personal favorite this year is the muncher from Next Generation Organics. It’s burpless, small and sweet. Melons can be fun, too, though I still struggle to tell when they’re ripe, so I just grow a few as experiments. Melons at the market are inexpensive and delicious!
Flowers
I love adding flowers to our raised beds in Boise. I put nasturtiums in every corner of our garden beds, and then I add calendula or marigolds next to each tomato plant. Zinnias are a must and come in so many gorgeous colors, and they grow well and quick from seed. Strawflower and cosmos are also wonderful for summer bouquets.
There you have it. I hope this list inspires you to get out to your local nurseries (North End Organic, Edwards Greenhouse, Next Generation Organics) or to the Boise Farmers Market for high quality plants adapted to our area. Pack them into your beds and add more plants every couple of weeks to stagger your harvest. Have questions? Feel free to contact us!