Temperature Changes and Snow in May

This past week I was in Hershey for a conference. Before I left, I mowed the lawn and tended to all of my plants, veggies and herbs. I felt confident that things would be okay while I was gone, particularly since the forecast called for rain.

Imagine my shock when I woke up Monday morning and heard the temperature in State College was 35 degrees! I was so worried that my plants and herbs were stressed. I met up with our maintenance guys for lunch that day and they told me that Western Ferguson Township had snow. Snow?! in May?! Only in State College....

Thankfully, I returned home and all was well. My grass was ready to be cut and the flower beds definitely needed to be weeded, but other than that, everything seemed to have fared pretty well.

There are some new additions to the Oasis and the garden. I attended the Linden Hall Garden Club's Plant Sale before leaving town. What a hoot! The ladies bring any and every kind of plant imaginable from their homes and auction them off. Bidding starts at $.25. I made out like a bandit - for $9, I came home with a house plant (which I keep forgetting to water), two planters in cute hanging metal buckets that had peonies and other cute plants in them and a pot of herbs. I was so excited! The ladies will be selling pies at Memorial Day. I will definitely be contributing a few pies again this year as a way of saying thank you.

I also scored a new addition for the garden. Bruce, the chair of our parks and rec committee and a really great guy, stopped by and dropped off two chive plants that he dug out for me. They are great! The one is absolutely huge. I'm so excited to see them flower.

I have to say that gardening has been a huge learning experience for me. My onions were looking a little sad a few weeks ago. I mentioned this to one of my elected officials, who happens to grow the biggest onions in Boalsburg. He advised that the onions love water and hate weeds. A few days later, after some weeding, some watering and a lot of rain, the onions had perked right back up. Its nice to have some many people to lean on with my questions.

I'm off to Erie on Tuesday, back on Thursday. Here's hoping there is no snow in the forecast! I was going to put my tomatoes and peppers in this weekend, but I think I'll hold off another week to give the soil temperature time to rise. Tomatoes and peppers are really tempermental and like a warm soil (pretend I know what I'm talking about, okay?).

Have a happy Memorial Day! I will be in Boalsburg at our festival. When your town is the birthplace of Memorial Day, you really don't get the weekend to yourself. I don't mind, though, as I like to watch what happens in town. People on Main Street start sprucing up their porches and everyone seems to be throwing parties. Its nice to live in a place that takes so much pride in its heritage.