Hot May in the garden: spring chores of a summer resident

In May, fruit crops finally wake up after winter. Therefore, May in the garden is the brightest and at the same time the most troublesome month.

The kidneys swell and open. They demonstrate how trees and shrubs overwintered. Plants are preparing for flowering and the formation of an ovary, bright greenery covers the crowns, and against its background, branches that have died out or weakened during the winter are especially clearly visible. Insects appear along with the heat, most of which are not very friendly. In addition, a lot of excitement is brought about by the changeable May weather, now pouring with almost summer heat, now bringing cold winds, rains, frosts, and sometimes snow.

All these joys and problems fall on the shoulders of the summer resident, who has no opportunity to retreat, otherwise he will not see the coveted harvest. What should you prepare for? What work in the garden are priority, what plan do you need to adhere to in order to do everything?

Fighting May Frosts in the Garden

The beginning of May is the most unpredictable time. The sun is shining for half a day, followed by a cold wind with the coming clouds, and the nights are threatening with subzero temperatures. According to folklore, the most serious cold snaps come during the blooming bird cherry and the opening of the buds on the oak.

The gardener must be prepared for the May drop in temperature and the protection of fruit and berry plantations.

If swollen, but not opened buds survive frosts down to –8 ° C, then barely visible leaves after –3 ° C can turn black, shrink and fall off. The worst of all is when the frost affects flowering gardens or passes along branches with already formed ovaries. In this case, temperatures below 1-2 ° C will be fatal.

For a cold snap threatening subzero temperatures, you need to prepare in advance. As a measure to combat frost, use:

• smoke with the help of arson checkers or smoke heaps located in the garden;
• the location under the crowns and between the bushes of containers with water;
• shelters made of nonwoven fabric.

To save the planting of garden strawberries, loosening and watering the soil under it, do not rush to cover the soil with mulch. On moist soil, herbaceous shrubs with formed flower rudiments will survive the cold weather better.

Planting and grafting horticultural crops in May

In the first ten days of May, while the buds on the seedlings have not opened, you can plant young fruit trees or replant those that, for whatever reason, are in the wrong place. Since the procedure is accompanied by real stress for the plant, it should be carried out on a quiet, cool, better cloudy day.

The same weather in May is good for grafting apples, pears, stone fruits. Since trees affected by frost and rodents are already clearly visible, the gardener needs to vaccinate "bridges" designed to compensate for damage to trunks and skeletal branches.

Although the task cannot be called simple, grafting bridges, with proper implementation and summer care, allows you to preserve valuable trees and enjoy your favorite varieties of apples and pears for many years to come.

As a grafting material, root shoots left over from last year or young branches located below damage are used. After the implantation of bridges, the emerging shoots and foliage must be removed from them, and the grafting site is artificially shaded.

In May it is not too late to plant or transplant garden strawberries, as well as berry bushes, for example, blueberry, honeysuckle, game, chokeberry.

Spring garden pruning in May

The beginning of May is the time of sanitary pruning fruit trees... Frozen branches are cut into a ring, weakened or partially dead ones are shortened to living wood. Places of cuts are leveled and processed with paint. Garden pitch will not withstand hot sunlight, so this material, familiar to a gardener, is not suitable in May.

With the swelling of the buds on raspberries, blackberries and other berry bushes, they are also pruned. If the raspberry shoots were bent down for the winter, they are raised, shortened to the first strong bud, and the sick, dry and weak are cut out completely, to the ground level.

Watering and feeding garden plants in May

In many regions, May is dry, the soil quickly loses its stored moisture, and plants cannot do without regular watering. First of all, the May watering of the garden begins on sandy soils, loams.

Berries will bloom first and then bear fruit. It is convenient to combine the application of organic fertilizers with watering, which will come in handy after a long winter and on the eve of a new harvest.

In addition to raspberries, currants, gooseberries and other shrubs, it is necessary to provide watering for garden strawberries and fruit trees. Before that, it is useful to remove weeds from the near-trunk circles, loosen the soil and mulch it. If the soil around is covered with turf, the amount of moisture and fertilizer per tree or bush increases.

May is the time for active garden pest control

With the arrival of heat, not only the buds wake up, but also numerous pests, pathogens, dangerous for the fruit garden and berry crops.

While the buds have not yet opened, at the beginning of the month, sawflies and weevils are shaken from apple trees, cherries, and other stone fruit crops onto a spread film or other material. At this time, their pests are activated on raspberries, currants, gooseberries. The appearance of foliage is accompanied by the appearance of ants, aphids and other enemies of the garden.

In May, it is extremely important to carry out a comprehensive pest and disease control, which consists in spraying the plantings at the green cone stage, then, if necessary, the trees are treated with painted buds. During the flowering of apples, pears, plums and cherries, chemicals are not safe to use. They can cause pestilence of bees and reduce yields for several years to come.

Before flowering, shrubs are sprayed against a complex of pests, and gooseberries are additionally sprayed from powdery mildew, which often ruins not only the crop, but the entire plant. By the blossoming brushes on the currants, it is easy to notice unusual purple flowers resembling double ones. This is a sign of an incurable disease of the berry culture, which ceases to bear fruit. Such bushes are removed and burned. When the flowering of gooseberries and all types of currants is completed, the bushes are examined to identify moths. The affected leaves and tops of the stems are cut off along with the spider webs and destroyed.

Spring work in the garden - video