It’s the last day of May. I can expect each Tucson afternoon to hit 100 degrees F, or close enough. It’s a good time to bring my gardening efforts indoors, or to take on long-awaited interior organizing projects. Right? Close, but not quite! This week I have dug up a small tree, extracted compost from the bottom of the outdoor bin, and trimmed a gigantic rosemary bush. I transplanted sweet potatoes from inside and potted peppers, tomato, basil and strawberries from the front patio, into raised beds out back. Afternoon shade helped, but really I was restless and didn’t mind the heat. 
Was I “procrastiplanting,” according to the fashionable Facebook meme? Or making the most of late astronomical spring days that are only 100 degrees instead of 105 or 110? Welcome to foresummer in Tucson, the hot dry period roughly May through June. Read on for both outside and inside gardening ideas.
Plant outside now if you must
If you follow local gardening guidelines, most warm season plants really were supposed to go in the ground by the end of April or Mid-May. If, like me, you were running around like a crazy chicken lady at the end of the school year and FINALLY have some spare time, I can’t help but try planting anyway. If I told you in a Nature to You class to plant something any time of the year except June, you might understand I’m rushing to do as I say. And if you and I are both caught still planting tomorrow… something might still make it. I’m risk-tolerant in the gardening department.
Plant inside
- A windowsill garden is my favorite way to bring the outside in. Currently, a collection of houseplants, cool-season veggies, and exploratory sweet potato vines are vying for their share of sunshine in our east-facing dining room window. I will soon add some of those sensitive warm-season seeds to transplant later in Monsoon summer.
- Kitchen scrap gardens are fun to teach about and to play with because of their accessibility. We really have been eating more (grocery store) celery this spring – and I get excited to stick the base in a bowl of water to watch for new growth within a day or two. The downside is that fruit flies also get excited about the extra moisture and smells. I composted a set of rotting-not-growing carrot tops and transferred a bunch of slimy green onions to a pot outside, plus my husband bought new sticky sheets for the plug-in fruit fly trap. I am now allowed to keep a smaller and mostly fly-free collection on the kitchen counter.
- Back in December, Kid 1 and I purchased the pieces of a DIY indoor aquaponics kit as a Christmas gift to my husband. In the first week of summer vacation, we dared discuss where it will go in our crowded house. The goal is to grow a small bed of winter greens year-round, with the help of a goldfish or two. We all love the idea. Will we organize and move the bookcase of family photos in order to make the idea a reality? I will probably do some more procrastiplanting first.
More ways to garden in foresummer
- I wrote “harvest vermicompost” near the top of my summer to-do list. Then I turned to my outdoor transplanting scramble instead. Some afternoon soon, I’ll try to sit still long enough to sift worms from one bin to the other. Then I can add nutritious vermicompost to the tired soil in my pots. Meanwhile the worms comfortably keep doing their thing in two bins in my cool living room.
- Actually using the vegetables I grow outside is a healthy challenge for our family. Kid 2 surprised me by picking the last scraggly spinach leaves to put on his turkey sandwich yesterday. I used home-grown green onions and parsley in a salad for dinner last night, and 3 out of 4 family members braved the burst of flavor. Our first two Anaheim peppers of the season turned into taco toppings. It might sound little, but summer to me means time to make that short trip to the garden instead of just the fridge.
- Watering, watering, watering. In summers past, a leisurely walk around the yard and patio with a hose was a happy evening routine. This summer’s routine is slowly taking shape. The plants that are already growing appreciate the care, no new planting required.
- Look out the window. Firewheel flowers bob in the breeze. Quail hunt and peck for seeds. Hummingbirds real and decorative find green onion flower nectar. Light and open space can calm, help me be less restless even from indoors.
Are you itching to be outside or thrilled to come in? Are you more focused than me, or as scattered as the dry oak and wolfberry leaves scuttling around my backyard? Happy foresummer gardening, whatever projects you choose – or whatever chooses you.