We’ve got cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes coming in every day and we’re about a week away from picking the first mess of beans. We had a stretch of dry weather that was tough on the garden, but we finally got relief with some good soaking rain.
I hope those of you who were suffering from the dry weather finally got some rain too. Makes me wish we could take the excess water West Virginia has had to deal with and spread it out to those who are in need of it. My heart goes out to the folks who’ve lost their homes and communities from flooding.
I’d like to plant a second planting of some veggies this month to stretch the harvesting period out longer, but I’m not sure I’ll actually get it done.
Drop back by in a few days and I’ll walk you around the garden.
Tipper
I always plant by the signs. I believe in it.love reading all the post.
Tipper,
and PinnacleCreek…we mostly had a zillion waspers buzzing around and in our field peas….when picking they just fly off to another pea plant…I have never been stung when picking these peas….I am not allergic to them however, but if I had an allergy to any type of bee stings…I would not want to take the chance…
I wonder if the attractant is akin to the black ants that swarms over Peony buds! The Peony bud secretes a sticky substance keeping the balled bud tight….The peony depends on the ants to eat this substance loosening the petals so the bloom will open…I read this years ago in some flower garden book….
One then would wonder why these types of waspers (usually parasitic types) don’t buzz/flock around other garden veggies like tomatoes, green beans, English peas, etc….My thinking is that there is a “minute insect” similar to an aphid that they are feeding on…and the insect is feeding on another substance (secretion) on the plant…?
I was just pondering this mystery of our garden world! Of course, we never sprayed for them…since so many of the bee type pollinators are disappearing!
Thanks Tipper,
We’ve had some thunderstorms here but no steady rain. Last night about eight though it blew up a pretty bad storm then settled down and rained until about one. I went outside and sat listening to it and thinking, “Here I don’t have a garden this year and there are people who desperately need this and can’t get it.” I felt a little bit guilty but I needed that rain too, for my soul.
Tipper,
I called the Radio Station awhile ago, thanking Donna Lynn for playing such good Gospel Music. When she asked what I wanted to hear, I said anything by the Wilson Brothers. She played two of their songs and one of them was about helping some pilgrim along the road. That’s another of my Favorites…Ken
Tipper,
My back won’t allow me to have a garden this year, but I can’t wait to have you walk us thru yours. Growing things is such a fulfilment.
I burned a jacket nest that my lawnmower man showed me yesterday. It was in the ground, but I poured gas in the hole and then lit it. Boom! That took care of that…Ken
My garden is coming right along, but always behind the ones south of here in warmer climate. Also some unusually cool nights has not helped. The garden got a great deal of the rain that devastated neighboring counties, so it seemed to take forever to dry out enough to hoe, then weeds were enormous.
I can’t complain, as I learned long ago of the ups and downs of farming. It certainly gives us a lot of respect for our forefathers who depended on gardens and hunting to prevent starving. It does seem there are many more critters now than back in the day when my grandfather planted huge fields. Any predator was killed and anything edible was killed and eaten.
I kept intending to plant underground crops by the signs, as I seemed to have terrible results. I have the best of intentions that never happen, but you know what they say about “good intentions.” Sometimes other posters give me a brilliant idea. However, I have never figured a way to keep the yellow jackets off my black eyed peas. Every year I have to shamefacedly ask my brave cousin to pick them. He does so with those varmints buzzing all around, and he never gets stung.
Happy gardening–love everybody’s posts about gardens.
My garden is looking better than it has in years despite the spring rains that delayed plowing for three weeks. One of the seed catalogs had a green bean trellis that I almost ordered, but I copied their design and made my own. They are made with bicycle rims attached to a tall stake that is several inches in diameter. I used heavy yarn tied to the spokes and secured at the ground with small pieces of wood such as skewers and tree limbs. The Kentucky Wonder Beans have reached the top and beyond. My White Half Runner and Yard-long beans are reaching for the sky.
My German Shepherd has chased the critters to another farm.
I am trying not to be envious of all you gardeners with a long season that starts early. Maybe I should be moving southward 🙂
It’s dry as dust here. Only one day in the month of June that I did NOT have to water! Keeping the plants alive, but growth has been very slow. Saw the first flower on a pole bean plant last night, but the plant is only knee-high.
Rain predicted this afternoon, so fingers crossed.
Here in Michigan we seldom get a second planting, unless it’s cool weather produce.
My father, J. Marion Dyer, “planted by the signs,” and we always seemed to have plenty from our garden and “patches” and from our full-blown, good-yielding, bottom-land farm! He aimed to have “the first mess” of green beans by July 4, and I hardly remember a year that was not the case (sometimes before July 4–but nearly always by that date!).
I have had to water for about the last month and am watering as I write this. That is in spite of having gotten about 1.25″ of rain on Sunday night, which was the first rain of over 0.3″ we had had in over a month. And I have never before seen such low summertime humidities in Georgia, as low as 17%, and even in the 30’s at ten o’ clock at night. Plus 5-20 mph wind day after day. Hopefully that pattern is beginning to break.
We have only just begun to get a few tomatoes. But I have a lot of blossom end rot, even though I limed before I planted. The cucumbers and squash are blooming well but producing poorly. They wilt every day before noon in spite of my watering them about every three days.
I would like to make a second planting also but as long as it continues dry I am not prepared to risk it. I usually plant a fall garden of cool season vegetables and greens between Aug. 1 and Aug 15.
Ah well, those who farm must have faith, I reckon.
Fresh veggies from the garden are THE best part of summer!