The Garden is Finally Growing

It has been a busy few weeks and the heat has been truly oppressive. This means really early mornings and late evenings in the garden getting the weeds under control, finding a source of water to hydrate the garden, and mulching as much of the garden as we can. Watermelon, canteloupe, butternut and yellow crookneck squash, two varieties of cucumber, strawberries, potatoes, another two varieties of peppers, acorn squash, and more tomatoes to replace those flooded out in the earlier rains are in the ground and now watered to hopefully pop up soon. We will have lettuce and kale at the market this week from the garden but the other vegetables from our community garden are going to take some time getting going with the late start, the flooding rains washing out the seeds and turning the ground into concrete, and working with Mother Nature to get the ground tilled again and ready to replant. Duane found us water so we have been getting the ground hydrated with close to a thousand gallons of water so far. Thank you so much Duane!!!!

We will plant late green beans as those don't seem to have made it well through both the flooding and then the extreme heat and all the greens will be planted again late in the summer for some good fall crops. We are working on transplanting spaghetti squash and some more canteloupes to the garden but honestly, the heat and the cistern running out of water have put us a bit behind.

Several community members have recently helped so much... Linda Hunsinger and her grandsons helped plant peppers and potatoes and Martin worked with me Saturday morning mulching for about four hours. We have almost reduced the round bale of corn stubble to a really small amount and will next work on breaking the big round bale of straw for a second attempt at holding the moisture in the ground. We have several other volunteers that I can say a hardy thank you to and Jackie Mills is most certainly one of them as well as the Winning family and some others who are waiting out the extreme heat before they come out to help.

Next is spraying the plants with food grade diatomaeous earth to get rid of the moths and caterpillars who decided our garden looked like a good spot to stop in. The compost bins are built and started and the orchard is managing well in the heat with the first layer of mulch and more to be added after the next rain. Looking forward to all those apples and peaches in the future and next year we will be adding much more in the small fruit realm to the large trees we planted this year. Dreaming about next year is probably not a good thing when we still have to get through this year.. dreaming on............