Mariposa Master Gardeners have been sprouting seeds and transplanting up a storm since February to get ready for the annual plant sale May 7. Photo credits: Mariposa Master Gardeners 

Because of our now-it’s-spring, now-it’s-winter-again weather, you may be wary of getting a start on your summer garden. Remember, Mariposa’s historic “last frost date” can come in early May.  Ease your mind. Let Mariposa Master Gardeners do the worrying over seeds and seedlings for you.

Since February, MGs have been preparing for the Saturday, May 7, 2016 plant and garden art sale at the Amigo Picnic Area at the Fairgrounds. The sale will be from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and this year, it is not the same weekend as the Butterfly Festival, so everyone can come early to get the best plants.

There will be an information booth for gardening questions, plus demonstrations and displays of techniques including square-foot gardening, straw-bale gardening, gray-water systems and what plants do well together.

The art table will feature hand-painted tools and rocks, trivets, and hand-made plant ID signs.

Tomatoes are always a big part of the offerings and we count some 50 varieties being grown, both heirloom and hybrid. There will be good old reliables such as Early Girl, Better Boy, Yellow Pear, Sweet 100, and Sun Gold.  And Master Gardeners are nurturing some with more exotic names: Hssiao His Hung Shih (a yellow cherry), Berkeley Tie Die (a big one), Ruby’s German Green (a beefsteak), Paul Robeson (a large “black” variety that has won many taste contests) and “Bloody Butcher,” a medium, juicy, red.

Some of the landscape plants MGs are babying are Coyote Mint, Mexicana Limelight Sage, Queen Red Lime Zinnia, several sunflower varieties, Rose Geranium, “Curly Whurly” sedge, barrel cactus, and heritage roses with their hardiness and fabulous fragrance.

Edibles include raspberries, lots of leafy greens, Armenian and other cucumbers, Brown Turkey fig trees, several varieties of peppers, peas, okra, eggplant, zucchini, melons, and beans.

The herb area includes parsleys, sages, basils, chervil, garlic chives, marjoram, peppermint, rosemary, lemon balm, and everyone’s favorite owie-soother, aloe.