I Can Always Buy Water

 I have always said that given the choice between unrelenting heat and sun or rain I will take the unrelenting heat and sun because I can always buy water.  And that's where we are today.  It hasn't rained in a few weeks.  It has been 90 or close to it for days on end.  We have the AC on in the house.   There is no dew to speak of and I am watering most of the vegetables every morning.  And so, I have run my 500 gallon rainwater tank dry.  This means today was water tank maintenance day.  My husband has to get into the tank, scrape the sides and rinse out the sludge.  We have to take the opportunity to do this every time it runs down.  We didn't do that last year because I never got below half a tank.  The last time it was done was Solstice 2020.  We also replaced the leaky hose from the sump pump to the outlet so I should have a lot better water pressure.  Then we filled it up from the house spigot which will be reflected in this month's water bill.  But that doesn't happen very often and at least I have that option.

The garden is loving the sun and heat as long as I make sure it has plenty of water.

Cucumbers

Sweet Corn

Speaking of sweet corn.  Remember back on the 8th when I reseeded the second planting of sweet corn because I thought the birds got it?  I don't think it was birds after all.  I waited eight days and when nothing came up I went looking for my seeds again and found only fragments of the treated pink shells.  Total annihilation.  You know, its one thing to lose some or even most of a crop.  But every last one?  Twice?  I could only assume at that point that it was mice.  Well, blocking out mice is much more difficult than blocking out birds.  But I gave it a try.  I put the row cover down on the surface and pinned it down on the sides with both gravel and t-posts.  I put bricks across each end.  I clipped the corners tight. I obsessed about it for days. 

At night I also laid the polycarbonate panels down on it in case that helped.  At least it kept the soil warmer.  Nothing about that mess says "get your free nibbles here".  I mean how would they even know there was corn seed in there?  Except for the fact they'd found it there twice...

But it worked and yesterday, there were shoots.  Not just a few.  A pretty good percentage.  I feel so much better now.  But they are a LONG way from tasseling... so I still have to keep an eye on things.  I put the hoops back under the row cover to lift it up off of them.  They are still bird proof, but no longer mouse proof.  I hope they make it.

Reseeded June 17th

The pole beans are looking very good and reaching for the trellis. 
Bush beans in the other bed are sprouting but sluggish

Cantaloupes

I have three heads of broccoli just about big enough to harvest
and the cabbage heads are large and firm.  It isn't as much fun taking pictures if you have to uncover Tent City and these hoops are the hardest to deal with.  So I get a little lazy.

 

Summer Squashes

Hot Peppers

Tomatoes

Peas

Potatoes

Sweet Potatoes and Carrots

In addition to watering, we have been working in the heat on the next step to solve our wet lawn problem.  We're easing into it.  We have a large corner that needs to be turned into a rock garden like the last two areas.  We're starting at the garden shed deck.  When we don't really know what to do, flagstones are always a start.

We started by stripping the sod and laid down road mat.

At this point we were wishing for some sort of computer program to scan this pile and arrange it for us....

It turned out pretty well.  The large, flat stones are very stable.

It dresses up that corner nicely and I have been walking all the way to it to step up on the deck.  In the wet spring I avoid that corner completely.

Now to get rid of the rest of this muck mess