A Break In The Rain

Today started out warm and completely overcast, 73F and 93% humidity. 50% chance of a “torrential downpour” around 2pm.  We decided to trim weeds and mow the lawn early enough to beat that.  Around 11am it looked like it was trying to clear up but it turned out it was just organizing itself enough to rain which it did moments after the lawnmower was put away and before I had finished some of my other garden chores.  It was one of those times when I was already soaked through from humidity so I just finished up in the rain.  A little bit ago the sun finally came out and it looked like we were going to get an hour or so of nice weather so I went out to enjoy it while it lasts.  It is hot and muggy.  We already have the air conditioning on in the house just for humidity.  We had been enjoying cool nights with the windows open but this morning even the tile floors felt sticky.

Things are starting to turn around.  The peppers and tomatoes are starting to recover.  Below the dwarf tomatoes are about a tenth of size they were last year at this time.  Next week they are predicting a heat wave so I will be breaking out the shade cloth again.

Things are evening out but I am still facing a few challenges.  Pole beans is the current one.  Something is eating the Seychelles green beans as soon as they spout.  I only have a few plants.  When I plant my row of pole beans I start at each end, plant a total of a third row of Monte Gusto and two thirds row of Seychelles but I do it in two stages, from outer ends towards the center.  That way I get a longer harvest and when they start dying out they die out from the ends and I can pull those first.  At first I thought it was birds pulling the sprouts.  So I covered them with row cover but whatever it was, it wasn't birds.

1.  First planting of Monte Gusto yellow beans with no problem
2  Seychelles planted at the same time and now eaten down twice.
3.  Second planting of Monte Gusto today with mouse cover pushed down into the soil
4.  Where the second planting of Seychelles goes.

In case its mice I will add dryer sheets this evening after it gets done raining again.  As a backup, I planted Seychelles in a 6 pack cell and put it up on the potting bench.  I also have a pot of eggplants up on top where I am "hiding" them from flea beetles.

There were a few flea beetles on them last week, but I squished them and sprinkled diatomaceous earth around the soil for whatever ones dropped and hid in the roots.  These two little plants have quadrupled in size this week.  Just a little hail damage and some flea bites.

These two eggplants are a backup for the one I have in the garden which is not doing anywhere near as well.  I am about ready to pull that one and transplant the ones in the black pot over to the larger pot but since they are happy I am leaving them for now.  Apparently it's not just house plants that sulk if transplanted into a much bigger pot.  Next year I will have to plant them up slower and let them graduate through more sizes of containers.

And finally, if it ever stops raining long enough, I need to finish cleaning up the daffodils out of the perennial beds.  I have some annuals set aside, and the Heuchera from the firepit whiskey barrels to plant in the area below.  But I want to remove the Daffodil foliage at the same time so I don't end up planting the Heuchera on top of the Daffodil bulbs again.

I am going to put one of the Heuchera next to the deck too.  I was smart enough to check that there is room for a wire cloche over the plant in the winter to protect the evergreen foliage from the deer and rabbits!

And with that... the break in the rain is over.

Rotten Dahlia

 

I went ahead and dug up that wilted Dahlia today.  Yup.  Complete mush.  

I planted a sprouted tuber in its place since I had them.  I did not plant it as deep.  The soil around it didn't seem any more saturated than I would expect so it could be that this tuber had a nick or bruise that I hadn't noticed that made it more susceptible to rot.

I got my strawberry freezer jam made.  Just enough berries today and plenty more to come.  It isn't raining today but it looks like something could develop at any minute.  Complete cloud cover.

That's the fun of living close to the Great Lakes.    Not only to we get unpredictable lake effect snow, but we get lake effect rain too.

What to Title This? More Water I Guess

 Yesterday we got another 8/10 of a inch of rain.  That first picture right there is a Dahlia tuber that has had too much to drink.  I sometimes have water problems in this bed.  It is very dense soil and holds a lot of moisture.  I guess I'd better throw in the rest of the bag of Gypsum.  That is a Cafe Au Lait Dahlia.  I have a replacement but I may just pull it and leave a little more space for the others. I really doubt that it will recover at this point.  We are supposed to have "a couple of showers or a thunderstorm" five out of the next seven days.  Ugh.

At least my Pepper plants are enjoying the Iron-Tone being dissolved into their roots and are putting on some darker shades of green in their new growth.

That looks encouraging

Peas are forming pods

Hello Lady Bug
My camera was asking "what are we focusing on here?"

I had already done most of my perennial dividing, moving and replacing this spring.  There weren't really too many perennials to replace this year.  My Butterfly bushes all died back to the the roots and the largest one died completely so I had to replace it with one of my spare volunteers that I had tucked away. Also the Lemon Squeeze Pennisetum that we added to the big river bed last year didn't make it. 

I was sort of surprised because last summer it put on a lot of growth  (below) and was well rooted in.  I had planted two and both of them failed to break dormancy.  At first I gave them some time because having two plants in different spots of the same variety doing the same thing doesn't immediately say "dead" to me.  It may just say "late to awaken" like Karley Rose Pennisetum.  But by Mid-June I am declaring them dead.  Which is too bad because I really liked the grass.

Late Last Summer

The other plants we added are doing awesome.  Especially the Onyx and Pearl Penstemon.  This is an evergreen plant and so far (knock on wood) the deer have shown no interest.

I actually added a bunch of them, both Onyx and Pearl and Husker's Red.  Below there is one of each side by side.  The blooms are alike, but the Onyx and Pearl leaves are a deeper, more consistent color.

Neither one are as black as shown in the catalogs, but they certainly are doing well.  The one shown below has gotten a little beat up by the storms, but the stems just bend and keep on going.  I may put the two nearest the walkway in grow-thru grids next year just to keep them tidy.

A close up of the blooms.
The plant looks blacker in this photo.

Also added was an Instant Karma Elderberry

So anyway... since the ground was saturated I figured today was a good day to dig out those two Lemon Squeeze.  The roots were just fine, not rotted.  I had to cut them out with a Hori Hori knife.  There was no lifting them.   I replaced both with Uptick Creme Coreopsis that I had ordered to put somewhere near the side porch,but so far I hadn't had any big urge to put them where I'd planned to.  I want something yellowish in this spot and I still have one more Coreopsis that I can plant up front if I want.

It's handy to have a few options on hand to fill in spaces as inspiration strikes.  I hope this plant does better in this spot.  If it does, it will look appropriate in the creek bed environment.  If it doesn't... back to the drawing board.

Fertilizer Friday

 Friday is the day that I make sure everything has been fertilized as needed, both the annuals and vegetables.  I use a combination of side dressing with dry fertilizer and watering in with some fish emulsion.  We sure don't need to water considering the inch and a quarter of rain we got on Monday, but following up with a liquid fertilizer makes sure any dry fertilizer is off of the leaves.  This week I am out of the general Garden-Tone, so until I get back into town to stock up I am using the amendments I have on hand.  Bone Meal (Potassium) for the root crops and Blood Meal (Nitrogen) for the others.

The Cabbages, Broccoli and Cauliflowers have been enjoying the cool weather.  And they are also completely protected from the hail.  They have no idea what all the fuss is about.

The Peas and Lettuce also miraculously sustained little hail damage and are going about their business as if nothing has been happening,

That last storm on Monday was a doozy.  We got over an inch of rain in about 20 minutes combined with 5 to 10 minutes of huge hail.  I have spent the past few days picking up dead leaves and putting away frost cloths and the garden in general looks more like a garden and less like a war zone.  The tree leaves that came down in the hail made the whole area look as if it had been put through a blender.

The Dwarf Tomatoes and the Onions look pretty good.  The Micro Tomatoes in the pots are blooming and the Dwarfs have buds on them.  They will not be early like last year but otherwise they should be fine.

The Indeterminate Tomatoes are growing slowly but are nice and green.  They need some sun.  We have had rather overcast days and cool nights.

The Bell Peppers in the ground look abominable but they are all flowering and producing peppers.

The same Bell Pepper varieties in the pots look better but are not producing yet.  I guess it must be true that when a plant thinks it is going to die it gets busy with the reproduction end of things.

Havasu Hot Peppers

The Sweet Corn is fine.  There are some tattered leaves but they have been making good use of the rain and growing well.  This crop could use some heat too.

Solstice Sweet Corn

Gotta Have It Sweet Corn

The Pole Beans are fine.  Last year the timing was such that the new plants put out their first leaves right before the June heat wave and got burned to a crisp.  This year's weather is much more gentle on them.

Monte Gusto Yellow Pole Beans

I frequently have a problem with grass hoppers or earwigs or something munching on the green beans as they put out their cotyledons.  I reseeded the row below and covered it.  I was planning to complete the row down the center of the bed with a second seeding next week, but I will probably wait until the end of the month now.

Seychelles Green Pole Beans

The Cucumbers and Cantaloupes will soon be ready to transplant.  The 6 pack that looks empty is one kind of Cantaloupe that is just now cautiously popping through.

Dill and Sunflowers

Perennial Herbs, Sweet Potatoes, Carrots

Potatoes
with Bone Meal on their leaves

The Flea Beetles have awakened.  I seeded some Mustard along the Potatoes that is just now coming up.  That should attract them away and I can sprinkle that with Diatomaceous Earth.

The annuals surrounding the Dahlias are showing color.
You can't see it in the photo but I have corner posts and have constructed a protective room out of netting.  It saves me a lot of spraying.

The other side of the Dahlias

This spring I ordered in a container raspberry plant.  They are supposed to stay compact and bush like.  It has just begin to put on some real growth.  All I want is enough to nibble on.  Something that I can protect from the birds and bear without too much trouble.  They can have all of the blackberries in the briar patch on the other side of the fence.  The Raspberries are mine!

Bushel and Berry Raspberry Shortcake

The strawberries are producing well now but they are not sweet because we have had overcast days.  They only sweeten in clear sunshine which is not a problem if you are making jam, but is a bummer when you are just snacking on them.  I need 4 cups to make a batch of jam.  Even though half of this bed was just planted this spring, I have not given up hope of a batch of freezer jam.

Today In Pictures

 

A New Septic Sand Filter

Baby Snapping Turtle just passing through
Initially met him on the garden shed steps... eye to eye.
Had to come back and take a picture to prove it.  They're cute at this stage

Burning the spring brush pile between downpours
Including the top of that tree that fell in December

Golf Ball sized hail
And this had been melting for 10 minutes
Freaky lightening and tornado warnings

An inch of rain in 20 minutes
This was after half an hour.  the water was a runnin'

Time to hit the shower

Stick a fork in me I'm done