Today the forecast predicts a high of 30C, and tomorrow night a low of -4C. Sunday is supposed to rain. Monday might be a nice day but again, a cold night following that. Lots of wind inbetween all that. I don't think I'll be planting out much.

My snaps, carnations, ornamental cabbage, statice, and some annual grass have been in the ground for about a week, some for longer. Night before last we had frost so everything got covered and survived just fine. All the other annuals - about 30 flats worth - are hardened off, and only going back in the greenhouse or on a cart in the garage for cold nights. I keep having to move them around, though, to try and keep them out of the worst of the wind which dries them out so fast. Sometimes it's tricky - I swear that around here if you had 2 flags on a flag pole, one would be blowing north and the other south at the same time.

It's a crazy weather spring so far.

I've got some of my containers planted up, but they're predicting -2 for friday night, so they'll have to come in, yet again. I don't have anything planted in the ground yet, or in containers that can't be moved. Hopefully by next week the forecast will be better, and I'll get planting everything out.

We haven't had an actual frost since the last week of April - my indoor sown flats have been outside since then. There was a frost warning two nights ago and I put them all under the deck, but it only went down to +1. Most of my perennials have been planted out for two weeks, and some of the hardier annuals too. There is colder weather forecast for the next couple of weeks but if that happens I can cover stuff.

I've got most of my pots planted up and still am working on my perennials. So until I all of my perennials in, I won't be putting my annuals out. Today I am going to finish planting my garden with the exception of tomatoes and cabbage.
The weather has been up and down so much. It is supposed to hit 30*C today. Tomorrow 20* and 12* for Saturday with Sunday close to the same. We have had a couple nights of light frost this past week as well.

She said she was leery to do any planting because there was going to be a frost on the first of June.

Bite her tongue!

It's suppose to rain and be on the cool side here too this weekend, so I'll probaby transplant some more shrubs from the holding garden and putz around in the greenhouse. I have hanger hooks up in the greenhouse rafts so I'll do up some baskets and hang them up there till they're safe to go outside.

I don't plant any tenders in the ground till June 1st. That has been my tradition for years ;)

Sharon

We have a winter storm watch for the weekend, with freezing rain and snow. Sigh. I doubt I'll even do anything outdoors.

Today the temp is a very pleasant 24C. Hard to comprehend the forecast.

I have planted out 3 roses and the yellow SDB iris so far. I cover them all at night though...just to be sure.
I also have my begonias planted up...and I planted up a planter yesterday.......but they all are moved into the greenhouse at night with the 13 blooming bags, 3 wave petunia blooming bags, 3 fuchsia planters and the shhh don't tell anyone...the other two hanging begonia planters that I bought. Oh ya and the Osteo planter. I'm still running the heater in the greenhouse all night.

Oh and I have peas, carrots, potatoes, and dahlias planted in the veggie garden so far.

This morning at 5 am.....I set out all these plants....then I noticed a bit of frost on the ground. I hope that it didn't hit any of my plants. Eeekkss!!!!

As for the weather...our last frost date is approx June 6..so anything can happen. Oh ya...and watch for hail storms....they can do a lot of damage too. Yesterday, the sky darkened....and a storm threatened....so I put everything back in the greenhouse early....but we only got a bit of rain.

I'll probably plant up some more planters as I have more time....

Sierra

Gees, North, that's terrible! I've heard that there's supposed to be s*** in New Brunswick too. Crazy, crazy weather!

We've been puting stuff in pots and in the ground since mid April. Victoria Day weekend? Our tomatoes have been in the planters for 2 weeks here in Calgary. Many now in flower. Over the decades we've lost almost nothing due to late frosts despite the often repeated myth of the mantra 'wait until the May long weekend'. The season is too short and we enjoy our garden a month earlier than most AND a month later. An air temperature for a few hours of a couple degrees below zero is not enough to damage plants in a dry climate with the surrounding house, ground, concrete, etc. above zero.

Yeah, but weird stuff can happen. Of course, it can happen in July, too.

I like to get stuff out early as well. My normal goal is to have everything planted out/moved/divided etc by the end of May, then enjoy the summer (aside from weeding/watering/deadheading). Then again, I just hate gardening in the heat so I go great guns in the cooler weather. I'm usually chomping at the bit in April to get started, too.

The weather people must be on crack! Now they're predicting temps to drop to 0 tomorrow afternoon and -7 overnight. That's more than just an hour or so of cold and with today's 30C temp, that transition is hard on plants.

Ah, but my dear departed dad to the rescue. Last year, prior to passing away, he put in his Vesey's order for seeds and also bought an 83" x 100' roll of Agribon 30 floating row cover - provides up to 6 degrees of frost protection (so they claim). Mom just brought it to my attention recently (she didn't know what it was) so tomorrow - unless the weather crackheads change their mind - I'll be busy cutting it into usable lengths and covering. I'll probably leave it on for a few days, too, since next weeks temps don't look great either.

Even though this spring is cooler by a few degrees then normal I will take it over the wacky spring we had last year. Last year May was hot and then we had a hard frost June 29th, half of my dahlias got frost bitten and took the rest of the summer to recover. At least they took the time to make tubers to save for this year. I didnt get a single pumpkin or squash either.I am counting on no crazy swings in temps this year..savona

I planted my pots last week, and have only pulled them into the garage one night. I have planted out all my perennials that I mail ordered as well. I'm optimistic that I won't need to go and cover anything out in my garden! The pots however I will pull in if frost is threatening - since I don't want to have to pay to replace all the annuals that I put in there.
Janet

Ditto to all of the above! I've only planted out 2 dianthus plants (well, actually my DS begged have his own plant and I let him plant them!) for the rest I'm not going to do much yet -- maybe next week if the forcast looks OK. Although they have said the forcast for this weekend isn't going to be as "dire" as first predicted so maybe its going to be OK anyways. We'll have to wait and see I guess!

I usually start with the planters anyways so if frost threatens they are easy enough brought inside or grouped together and covered up. Other than that, I have a few shrubs and perennials to plant (why, why do I keep buying stuff) and then thereÂs weed pulling in preparation for planting. Once a bed is nice and Âclean itÂs fairly quick to plant.

One thing IÂll miss though, I love when itÂs warm and sunny when planting and the sun is warming the back of your neck as you lean over. ItÂs such a good feeling. Oh well, one year I actually found I planted stuff quicker when the weather wasnÂt so nice. You donÂt spend as much time fussing about planting depths, what to plant where, etc.

My tomatoes were planted April 26th in the kozy koats and are now starting to bloom. They are maybe ten inches high. I was surprised when I saw the patio tomatoes at Cdn Tire , they were about the same size and pretty expensive. I am not sure how much the kozy koats helped, they likely helped a bit though.

Glen

Well, i guess i'm definitely not planting anything for awhile! We got the cold north winds and even some s*** yesterday. The good thing is that there hasn't actually been a frost. Everything is still under wraps - i'm afraid to look - and the more tend stuff was brought inside. Today we have a respite from the rain and i'm hoping that dh will till the garden so that when things clear up it will be ready to plant.

I've heard of other areas getting a lot worse than us. How have you all fared?

Well it did snow a few days ago, but not the 10-15 cm expected. Unless it melted as it hit the ground because when I woke up there was only very little on the ground. Then we've had a lot of rain the last few days with highs of 15C. Very dreary and cold this Spring. The seasonal garden centres are just starting to bring in their annuals and they are under shelter. Have to get out and get stuff to do up my patio pots. My back yard is lower, so quite wet again. Won't be able to work out there for another couple days if it ever stops raining. Maybe putting together my pots will put me in a better mood. I don't usually plant out until last frost (June 1st this year).
Joan NB 4b

Well, I have only planted out perennials so far. All my annuals are still coming in every night. I'll probably plant them out next week since we are still dropping below 0c at night.

Syreeta

Same here, Syreeta. Did you wake up to s*** this morning too? Hope not.
That's three mornings this week for us, but this time there was some wicked north wind and even though it cleared up, melted and the sun came out, the north wind blew all day. It actually felt like a crisp, blue sky autumn day...go figure. Thank goodness the roses and spireas I planted yesterday seem ok.

Hi Toots, no I didn't wake up to s*** that morning. I think it has been almost 2 weeks since we had snow. We have had hail several times. Plus it is clear skies at night so the temperatures are dropping. I'm looking at planting my annuals this coming weekend when my sister is up from Vancouver. I have left my plants out for the last couple of nights. But I think around Wednesday we are suppose to go to 1C at night. I'll keep an eye on things and see what happens.

Toots, I know you are colder than us but we get more snow over the winter than you. I think this past winter we got about 16' of snow.

Syreeta

No frost here but parts of the city did see some light frost the other morning. I was nervous the other night, it was +4 and clear at sunset and they kept saying increasing cloud with rain.

Now that the sun's returned I think I'll have to give the plants only part sun today, just to get them used to the light. Though the plants were in the gazebo I felt sorry for them being cold and wet, but it was either that or a warm but dark basement.

I think I can start planting, though I'll probably do pots first as the ground is soggy. It sure seems bright out today after days and days of cloud and rain.

Glen

We haven't had any frost here either though it has come pretty close some nights. Things are still packed up in the cold frame and mini-greenhouse. This week looks to have milder nights, so i'm going to start planting and hope for the best. Keep your fingers crossed! :)

I need to start moving things out of the greenhouse so they're ready to plant out. It looks like our weather is finally improving. Environment Canada says we're getting rain ending this morning, but there's not a cloud in the sky. All my annuals and winter sowing are very grateful that I didn't have them planted before our big snow. I was lucky and had put the lids back on the wintersowing and tucked an old sheet over them, due to the forecast. They were safe even though a bunch of tree branches landed on them. This week's big plan - finish seeding the garden as soon as I can get in it, and start getting my annuals out. I had planned to have some out already, and my tomatoes out under the row cover, but weather has interfered.
Connie

We didn't get any s*^#. But it froze hard a couple nights. Some of my lilies are looking rough.
I've planted out most of my annuals on Sunday. But I still have a few more trays to plant out yet. My tomatoes and peppers need to get into the ground yet too.
And then I have to deal with my wintersown stuff. I still have a row in my veggie garden, so it's going to be my holding bed for this new project.
The weather doesn't look to promising for sun. The weather stations are showing rain up until Saturday. GRRR. I guess I'll be planting in the rain. It might be good for the plants, but I hate planting in the rain all of the time.

Shelley

Sunday, when we finally had a nice day and the forecast looked fairly good for the week, I hauled a lot of plants outside to start hardening them off. I put them in dappled shade in a sheltered spot.
Last night I checked the weather and the low was around 7C with chance of rain. I figured the plants would be fine. This morning the temp is 3C with a windchill of -1C. I ran out and quickly covered the poor things.
What useless information the weather forecasters give!

This is the latest in quite a few years that I've not got my garden seeding done. DH would like to raise the garden up with a load of garden mix. He's OK to do it in the fall but I know it won't get done then. So, I think I'm not going to put in the veggies this year and let him do his "raise the bed" thingy - whatever it is he wants to do. I'll just have to find a spot to put my 'maters. I've only got 6 so I'll probably just do them in pots this year.

In our case, and in hindsight, maybe it's a good thing that the weather has been so uncooperative. I guess I'm going to get a semi-raised bed out of the deal. lol

Shauna

Well, I've been a little leary of the coming full moon(Thursday night) so I've been holding off planting any WS seedlings or stuff I've started indoors until that's come and gone. We haven't had any frost since last week and it's been tempting. The forcast looks all clear for the next week , too, but we all know how that can change!

Most of the veggie garden is in though, just waiting to get the beans and bedding plants in. Everything seems about normal this year as far as timing goes for this area.

Syreeta, lucky you , no s*** last week :^) I think you must have been the only place in Canada that didn't get hit! Even though we got it four times they were only skiffs and didn't do any damage. I see now that one rose and one spirea got touched, but it was likely the cold wind.

16 feet of snow! WOW! That's why everyone from up here goes down there to snowmobile! I think the airport in FSJ recorded a total accumulation of 8 ft. which is quite tremendous for here.

It seems that a break in the weather is on its way here, if we believe the forecast. We've had rain and cold interspersed with a few warm days for the past three weeks but this morning's forecast says no rain for the coming week.

I've started planting more containers and have planted out a few WS plants that were climbing out of their containers. Last night, at my garden assistant's insistance :), we planted some impatiens in their usual area under the Nanking cherries. That area is getting rapidly overrun with self-seeded columbines. Mother Marcia may have to interfere with Mother Nature....

My garden assistant, btw, is my son's girlfriend's 9 year old daughter. She loves gardening, esp. decorating, and has ideas for several, ahem, eye-catching displays in my yard... :>

"has ideas for several, ahem, eye-catching displays in my yard... :>"

LOL! Looking forward to seeing pics later on Marcia!;^) At least my little guy has finally realized that onions should be planted in the veggie garden and not in every flower pot.:0)

Yesterday, they kept calling for rain all day, but it never did appear, which was great because I was able to get about 95% of my annuals planted out in either pots or in the ground. It did rain overnight and is really cool and windy this morning, but hopefully it'll warm up a bit later and I can get started on planting out all the perennials I've got sitting around in pots. That should take a couple of days, but what a relief it'll be to not have to worry about keeping them all watered.

I must remember to take pictures for sure. I missed the one with the trellis propped in front of a small raised bed, with two pieces of beaver wood in an X in front of it. She then decided to put my two trellises on either side of the sidewalk, but i moved them last night so we could plant those impatiens. I was almost relieved today when it was pouring rain after work - i just don't have the patience i used to!

However, the pieces of beaver wood she laid along the edge of another bed look pretty good. I might have to move them to mow on the weekend, but i'll put them back - and take a picture. :)