Sprout Farm Newsletter        May 10th, 2025          sproutfarm.net         open 9-5 daily

Hello Everyone,

Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful mothers. Mothers and gardens just go together and on this special day it is wise to know when the special mother in your life wants a bouquet or a plant. Bouquets take gentle care but gardens come with continuing care. The anticipated flower display is balanced with some realistic exhaustion. You may want to sweeten the gift of plants with a pair of garden gloves or a gift card for a manicure. There's nothing like getting your hands in good dirt but you want to leave it in the garden, not under your fingernails. Now boot scrapers are absolutely necessary in homes where the gardeners don't take off their boots as they enter the house. This time of year the floors aren't cold but winter habits linger into summer and the dirt that clings to boots and garden shoes piles up quickly.

This week's specials through Saturday are , All things Geraniums:

4”seed geraniums, Regularly $2.49, this week $1.89

6” zonal geraniums, regularly $4.89, this week $4.00

10” Geranium hanging baskets, this week $16.99

Jay has started to seed up some  yellow squash and zucchini. You can expect to see them starting Friday and cukes starting the Friday after that. The ground is still relatively cool and these summer crops like it warm. You can still plant onions, potatoes, peas, broccoli and lettuce. These plants love the cool soil and thrive before the pests come to feast on them. Rabbits will always be a problem. You either cage the rabbits or cage the garden. We just keep lots of cats who are happy to hunt just for the fun of it. It can get a little messy but we have what amounts to a salad bar ready for any hungry deer or rabbit. The fence works to keep the deer out but the rabbits just laugh at that fence so we have to be practical and let the cats hunt.

We have many more perennials this year than in the past. We have potted up sample perennials and they are spending time in the greenhouse gaining some size. What a fun way to get variety.

Our Hot Pepper Guy has started to bring over his special peppers. He's starting off with the mild to medium heat peppers and the super hots will show up in a couple of weeks. Let me know if your local grocery store carries any of those super hot peppers. They should come with a warning label on them or instructions on how to make your own pepper spray. If you have children and grow these super hot peppers, please teach your kids to be cautious around them just like you would train them to respect a wood stove or fireplace. An interior burn is far more painful than an exterior one.

Gardening on Cape Cod is more about moderating temperatures than fluctuating ones. We hope the ocean will keep us from watching predawn temps nose dive into a late frost. Here's a site that highlights gardening in the special place we call home. https://capecodxplore.com/spring-gardening-on-cape-cod/

We don't sell seeds but we do have lots of seed starter trays. We have hundreds of them in all styles and are happy to give them away. Just ask and we'll get you whatever you need from the seeding house. One seed planted in a plug tray will often give you better results than scattering them on the ground. The exception is root crops. The guys have put down a nice row of potting soil and the carrots are coming up nicely with no weeds. That potting soil may only be 4 or 5 inches wide and 2-3 inches deep but it's enough to give me breathing room to keep the rows weed free.

The non-kitten report. Fidget left for her new home earlier this week. Now it's really quiet. She had just discovered that she could go from the top of the couch to the lampshade without jumping. Her mom is looking for her kittens but more upsetting than that; we have put her on a regular diet and her begging no longer works. We miss our old cat Gorden who enjoyed children. This clowder of cats hasn't matured enough to enjoy children, The cats just run and hide..

That's all for now. Stop by and see us soon, Jay and Phyllis Sprout