We actually got about 1/2 inch of rain this week and a welcome break in the temperature. My perrenials have done well, in spite of the heat this year. I harvested some Stevia this week, and will harvest some French Tarragon this weekend.
Corn, even with regular watering is lousy. The ears so far have that gray-white fungus stuff all over them. This was an early variety hybrid-won't be using it again. In fact, I have just been clearing them out and plan to burn everything.
My country gentleman corn is doing well so far, and just beginning to tassel. I had a couple of really nice green tomatoes growing on the cherokee purple, so I picked one, washed it with warm water, wrapped it in paper, and will see if it ripens.
The other one was gone 2 days later. I assume the squirrels were desperate for water and picked it. Last year they left them alone till they had a lot of pink color, and lack of water is the thing that comes to my mind.
We have not been able to trap any this year. They get the bait, but don't spring the trap. We have ordered an above ground swimming pool which we plan to use to catch rainwater next spring, and route the water from the roof.
It will hold about 4000 gallons, and our rain barrels hold about 400, so we hope that we will not have to haul water next year, should the drought be similar to what happened this year.
We have 43 fruit and nut trees, vine and bushes that we hauled water for this year, but we just let the garden die except for a couple of my raised beds, and the perennial bed. We didn't even water the strawberry bed after June.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
We are still getting some tomatos, banana peppers, and our okry is surviving. We are getting some rain every few days, though. We discovered that the cheapo soaker hoses had splits in them and were not watering our okry patch properly. We now using a lawn sprinkler on them. That okry plot was just a last minute, thrown together plot on a sunny area in our far-back yard. No soil test or anything. Next year we will get a soil test and put in drip irrigation like our main garden plot.
Wow. You are blessed with so many fruit and nut trees. We don’t have the space for that many and a decent sized garden at our current home. We’ve got 6 apple trees, 3 crab apples (that don’t make, just for show), a pecan tree or two, 2 pear trees, and 5 hazlenuts that are kind of sulling so far. I’d like to have room for more big fruiting sort of trees and we may look into some dwarf varieties next spring.
What we do have space for are blueberry bushes. I landscape with those like most people do with plain old shrubs. We’ve probably got 30-40 of those counting shoots they sent up this year.
8 apache blackberries to start and I found 3 more shoots this week that we’ll be transplanting those later this fall.
Hubby got me 3 Dorman Red raspberries last year for mothers day that have gone completely nuts. Supposedly they were bred to be happy in the heat and humidity we have down here. They’re not ‘fresh’ eating ones but they make great jam and spread. I got seventeen new plants from those original 3 this spring from where the original canes tip layered. We put the 3 mother plants up in old tomato cages to confine them and dang if they didn’t ‘escape’ and tip layer some more. I’ve probably got 10 more baby plants this fall. We’ve given a lot away from the spring batch and hubby and I will probably extend our raspberry bed this fall to include the strays we can’t give away.
I wish I could grow French Tarragon. I’ve killed 2 plants so far. I think it might be the heat but if you’ve managed to keep a plant this summer it might just be ME killing them *chuckle*. My goal this fall when it cools off is to start an herb bed somewhere in my yard. And plant a bunch of tansy and pennyroyal around my doors.
My blighty tomatoes are still hanging in there. We had a couple cool nights this week and they’ve set a whole bunch of new baby tomatoes.
Monday we’ll plant some fall zucchini, cucumbers and maybe a last batch of basil. I’ve got a bunch of zucchini seeds that make in 50 days or less so we’ll see. Hopefully we’re past the vine borer stage. I plan to make zucchini powder, maybe some pickles and cucumber powder. Around labor day I’ll plant some cabbages, broccoli, peas, broad beans and other fall stuff. IF the bad old bunny rabbits predate, they WILL end up as Hassenpfeffer! Ditto Bambis! My kids loooove bambi cooked in the crock pot.
I may start a flat or two of leeks this week too. I’ve got the seeds and we love the leeks. They’re something else I’ve seen dehydrated successfully.
We’ve had the rain a lot of people have been missing this summer. Since early July it’s been VERY unusually damp and rainy down here. We haven’t had enough to drown the garden in about a month but we get rain nearly every other day. Which is it’s own set of problems...
Peppers, beans, summer peas and sweet potatoes are a bust. Sweet potatoes were completely defoliated with an accompanying pile or two of rabbit pellets. Grrrrr...
And my strawberry beds really NEEEED to be reset and cardboard/mulched too. If only I had a tribe of garden fairies to help!
I had a Frog choking down pour this past Wed. I bet we got over two inches of rain in an hour and a half. It rained so hard there was a river of water washing over our back porch. The porch is covered and at ground level. I will have to add more Fertilizer to my lone raised Bed tomato patch. I am sure what I added a week ago was leached out.
After successfully trapping Moles for 45 years I had to hire a pro to trap them for me last week. They would trip the traps but no catch-um. He got 2 the first day and no more Mole Hills. Our veggies and flowers are doing great in spite of very little sunshine...