Hey Garden HIVERS! What a delight it is to write this summary of what's going on in our gardens. Rather than listing all the posts, it's far more fun to summarise and include a few photos so if you've missed the show, you can enjoy a summary. Perhaps you might even go and check out the #gardenjournal tag and give a bit of garden love to some of the great content creators on HIVE that are sharing their gardens. Thanks to @bigsweed for unknowingly contributing your hopping awesome photo to the 'new look' garden journal challenge. I do like playing around with thumbnails, so forgive me for the change.

So, let's go - what's going on in your gardens early May?

In Denver, @phoenixwren is planting all her out of date seeds and hoping for a surplus of pumpkins for halloween. I adore this picture of @sanjeevm who, in the midst of huge coronavirus numbers, has decided to make his own oxygen factory - that is, plant more plants! His wife thinks he might have a farmer inside him and I agree!

Violets, apples, lily of the valley and more - @goldenoakfarm is the hardest working gardener I know and it's lovely to see the snow has passed and the blossoms and flowers are showing. The snow has also passed for @amberyooper, who's getting his tomatoes off to a good start in his greenhouse, especially with the heat coming off the wall.

I'm a bit jealous of @isabelpena - her ginger is sprouting beautifully, ready to plant! Mine didn't work last year, but I believe in trying again if you're not successful, right? Thanks for the inspiration, Isabel! @amberyooper is getting busy with tomatoes in time for the season.

Yet another garden started in lockdown in the Phillipines - the pandemic certainly made gardeners of us all! Thanks for sharing, @indayclara - and for sharing your excess with your neighbours too!

@olaunlimited shared his fruit garden. I wish I lived in a place I could grow mango trees! Like me, he's impatient waiting for the fruit, but as us gardeners know, if you don't plant, you won't HAVE the fruit, right? Other trees he's growing are soursop, which I've never tried, lemon and papaya.

@buckaroobaby has been dealing with baboons, strange weather and land that's not really arable, so any efforts to make a garden on her part are totally admirable. Like me, she's an avid herb gardener and herb lover, but I also loved reading about carob, which is a crop I don't read too much about.

@susi5654 wrote about the wet rains of May in Venuzuela - like many countries, infrastructure finds it hard to cope with weather! I wonder how our gardens will grow as the weather gets more and mroe extreme and how we will adapt.

Everything is growing so beautifully in @plantstoplanks garden - I can't believe how many strawberries she has already, and how well her kohlrabi are forming. I adore kohlrabi - my chooks ate mine so I'm a bit jealous.

I have to say the formatting of this post is second to none - do check it out and be inspired!!! It's soooo well formatted. Poor @holisticmom is dealing with the neighbours cat pooping in her garden and British weather, so do go over and give her some love. Check it out here.

@jinsmj03 has to win a prize for the best thumbnail - love a good thumbnail, me!!

@anafae wrote about her wild garden in Bulgaria. She's just starting out - though she's done a little study in permaculture, she's still learning about gardening. Go and give her some encouragement!!! A lovely post that I enjoyed so much!

@latifah1 wrote about coconut bonsai. Don't you love this picture of him? I've learnt so much about natural medicine and gardening in Indonesia since we started @lotusindonesia!

@crosheille wrote of her garden as being like looking after family - and the rewards you get back in kind.

@cbuendia5 wrote about her and her husband's efforts to grow all kinds of things, from jobo (which I'd never heard of) to garlic and oregano. Gardeners are so passionate aren't they? Her passion for her small space garden certainly shines in this post.

@wynella did her first entry on lovely tomatillos! I'd love to grow some! What beautiful fruit they have!

@me2selah wrote about planting mustard seeds - don't you think this lovely photo of hands full of seeds is symbolic of the potential we carry? From little things big things grow!

Just when I thought some of the photos people shared couldn't get any better than @bigsweed jumps in with this one. He's been busy pulling up a lot of the roots like me, because it turns out, one can actually have too many hops.

I hope you enjoyed this garden wrap up for early May - as usual, I enjoyed it immensely! I did find it funny that people were getting stressed they couldn't include more than ten photos - I wouldn't have really excluded you, as I'm not that mean - I just wanted you to be selective as sometimes a lot of shots of one plant can be a bit rough to scroll through, haha! But don't you worry - keep those #gardenjournal photos coming, and don't forget to comment on #gardenjournal posts throughout the month, whether the challenge is running or not.

Winners this month are @bigsweed (hope that eases the pain of all that hops eradication - hard work!), @buckaroobaby for being a woman after my own heart with all those herbs, plus a secondary post about wormwood and lavender in the chicken coop, @indayclara for sharing the excess with your neighbours and starting a really special garden, and @sanjeevm for your oxygen generating garden! I'm waiting for some HIVE to convert to my wallet, so I'll be sure to send it over soon - please be patient.

Happy Gardening!

With Love,