@abasket , when we lived in Denver I thought neighborhood kids had taken every one of my lovely pink tulip blooms from pots on my front deck, but then I saw the deer poop in the flower bed below…
Something has eaten the whole cluster of tomato buds and my baby tomato! I can’t see any bugs under the leaves or in the soil…sigh. If we had to survive on my gardening skills we would be dead soon!
I am thinking the deer concept is likely - although we have lived in this house 22 years and I ALWAYS have geraniums and have never had an issue - but since the absent blooms largely still have a good bit of stem it seems likely. I hope it was a random hit and they don’t make it a habit!
@abasket - maybe it is one of strange consequences of the pandemic. Fewer people out means more opportunities for wildlife to roam freely. In my neck of the woods, bear sighting have spiked… raccoons became more bold and pest-y… We think a deer ate our Turkish fir we planted a couple of years ago. It was our first Christmas tree in House2. ? now the tree looks like a trunk with a few stubby branches at the very top.
Where did we all go?! Are we buried in our gardens??!!!
Full on planting time here. All my flowers and herbs are planted at home. Still need to continue weeding and mulching.
Planted my vegetable garden yesterday at my community garden. Lots of various tomatoes and peppers. Don’t know why I ended up with so many peppers! Hot banana, poblano, bell, lunch box peppers. Eggplant, onions, kale and fingerling potatoes. Cucumbers though I need to put my teepee up yet for them to climb!
Planted a few radishes at home so should be able to pick them soon.
We’ve had so much rain. And cool weather. But next week is 80’s. Typical, no in-between!
How’s everyone else doing?
My tomatoes started from seed are almost a foot tall now. Some are already outside in their Costco containers, and some are still in their pots waiting for more containers to arrive. The strawberries are doing great in their little tower (will get another one when they become available), and the bunnies have not yet found a way to eat the blueberry bushes. 
The zucchini are not doing too well; I should have given them a few more days indoors before planting outside. There were some pretty cold nights recently that they had to endure. I think they will pull through.
Same here regarding the weather.
I did some weeding this week, but not much to weed. Suddenly my gardens have lots in blooms and in a week should be filled with color. Definitely my favorite few weeks coming up.
I’m going to look into ordering flower pots, hanging pots, and what I normally plants in my window boxes next week for curb side pickup. I know several nurseries in my area are doing it. I don’t normally do it before Memorial Day weekend anyway, since we can get a cold spell/freeze before then.
Might have them throw in some basil/thyme plants that I can pot.
I also finally finished planting the tall container shade garden by the front door. That utilized a lot of styrofoam.
My garden is one container with a tree rose in it. Getting warm and dry here, and its leaves are starting to peep out. One of my dogs likes the flavor of its soil, so some of my gardening involves redirecting her. I’m also watching out for insects that seem to think I planted it as some sort of salad bar (no) and have my spray bottle ready to fill with its hydrogen peroxide mix.
We have another urn husband brought out of the shed; next grocery trip I’ll pick up a pot of mixed annuals for it. Not feeling much ambition beyond that, but am looking forward to the cheer and color.
THIS.
Sigh.
Northeastern Illinois is slowly warming up, but my iPhone weather app has a series of thunderstorm icons on it!
Today is the day I’m planting flowers in the porch planters and will put the marigolds in at the side of the house.
I’ve got my four tomato plants in and no critters have eaten them yet. I’ve transplanted raspberry brambles to a new bed and have mulched those in.
I need to weed because the weeds are LOVING this weather.
Yep…rainy…cold…:(.
I’m hoping to get to the nursery on Sunday. We want to add some evergreens to the north side of the house, finally buy our veggies, and annuals. Fingers crossed for a window of no rain!
It will be interesting to see how our garden turns out. We planted most of our vegetables in early May as we usually do, but them we’ve had a run of cool and cloudy days, with some rain here and there but not many warm sunny days. In terms of landscape gardening, the chilly weather has impacted some of my annuals. My potato vine is discolored and I lost one of my coleus plants already. My perennials look great though.
Many of our potted herbs managed to overwinter due to a mild winter here. I didn’t have to replace our thyme, oregano or rosemary. I also have a larger inground rosemary plant in my garden but like having a potted one on the deck too within easy reach of my kitchen.
OMG!!! I hate cottonwoods!! Worse. Than. Squirrels! I now have to weed my containers from cottonwoods that began to sprouting from the fluff the big trees sent flying around last week!!
Weeded the slope in the backyard and got some more containers for the deck garden. @jym626 - were you able to get your deck garden going?
Thanks for asking, @BunsenBurner. You’ll have to tell me how you got your tomato seeds to grow because mine didn’t so I bought plants. I have 3 different varieties of tomatoes, basil (first plant didn’t do well so I just replaced it), rosemary, some peppers a neighbor gave me and the mint that grows back like a weed every year.
@jym626 - I started mine indoors in an egg carton filled with MiracleGro dirt. Seeds were commercial. When the plants grew to a couple inches tall, I transplanted them into 4 inch pots. Then they went outside to acclimate, and now they are sitting pretty in their cubic foot of dirt-plus per plant. I also started cucumbers, zucchini, and eggplant. Lettuce, cilantro, parsley, and dill went directly into dirt in a patio planter.
I have chile peppers and green tomatoes that are the size of pennies! I’m hoping to have my first ripe tomato for the 4th of July!
Garden has snap peas, onions, tomatoes, pole beans, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, eggplants, and tomatillos.
I have two large patio pots growing fingerling potatoes, another with yet another tomato plant, a large pot of mixed herbs (Italian parsley, chives , basil) and I just put out some Swiss chard and heat resistant leaf lettuce seeds in another pot. (Still have to figure out to protect the patio plants from the neighborhood deer who are quite unafraid of humans and won’t run away of you chase them. They come right onto the covered patio to eat the flowers on the patio table. They are real pests and the doe brings her fawns back year after year to show them the garden all-you-can eat buffet. My neighbor across the street has to booby-trap her fruit trees if she hopes to get any apples, pears or peaches at all. )
Indoors, I have herbs on the windowsill–basil, oregano, thyme, dill, Italian parsley and chives.
I just filled a wide outdoor bowl with zinnias and portulaca for my patio table. I’ve ordered calibrachoa seeds and will start those indoors to put in outdoor hanging baskets once they get going.
Weather her has been warm and dry–too dry. It’s looks like we will have another year of record drought.
^^^ @WayOutWestMom portulaca is one of my favorite summer flowers. It reminds me of the beach!
Took my mom to a gardening store and I FINALLY landed on some jalapeño plants!
I have my first failure of this season.
The weigela – a large flowering bush – I ordered in a nursery has remained the stick it was when it arrived. 
Will be asking for a refund/replacement. Sigh. I think I’m over buying plants online, with the exception of maybe bulbs.
I could have gotten a refund for the 1st basil plant, which sorta wilted, but it isnt worth the hassle to return it. Just bought another from a different store, and some is in tonight’s ratatouille!
I have to give our Governor two thumbs up for declaring gardening an essential activity right off the bat. It kept a lot of folks from going nuts… myself included.
We just ate our first harvest of lettuce.