Hot, hot, hot ... and dry

So I'm back from my two weeks away, and the garden is overgrown with weeds. Some vegetables didn't survive (there was .6" rain in my gauge), but the garden is a riot of color, and the roses have absolutely outdone themselves.  

'Zepherine Douhin'

'Shazam!'

'Razzle Dazzle'

'Neptune'

left to right: 'Grande Amore', 'South Africa', 'Shazam!'

foreground: 'Neptune'

Hollyhocks only had buds when I left.

After a couple applications of dicamba, I've finally managed to get rid of weeds and crabgrass in the paths around the flower plots.  I'll seed the bare ground this fall.

Some vegetables didn't get nearly enough water.  Peas are scraggly and drying out.  Kohlrabi that wasn't shaded by adjacent rhubarb has burnt leaves.

Five cucumber plants dried up and died.  Only two survived.  Fortunately, one of them is the new variety I'm trying this year - 'Beit Alpha'.  And the other is my staple 'Marketmore'.

Most lettuce is ready to bolt.  'New Red Fire' has matured to nearly all green.

I really like the variety 'Rouxai', a new one for me.  It may well be a new one for everyone.  The seed was expensive.   The leaves are a beautiful dark wine. 

I only have a few plants (the ones below were nearly lost in weeds), so I'm going to let them go to seed and have a bigger stand next year.  That is, if they're come true to seed, and they might not.

The arugula stand is quite lush.

Baby beets, arugula, and, surprisingly, the cantaloupes look fine.  I imagine it's because they get a certain amount of dappled shade under a mimosa tree.

The 'Savor' cantaloupe plants that were scrawny when I put them in are smaller than the small Persians, which was expected, but the plants look healthy now.

'Savor'

Small Persian cantaloupe

The weeds have had a two-week-long party.

'Calima' bush beans infested with purslane

I weeded the lettuce plot and the bean & pea plot this morning.  It took me 4 hours.  The picture below shows the difference in weeded vs not yet weeded halves.

Peppers look pretty awful, but they're alive.

Jalapeño peppers

sweet snack bells

The 'Seaside' spinach is bolting, so I sowed more seed.  It's got a nice flavor and texture.

I've got a LOT more work to do, but the flowers are making it tolerable.

Tiger swallowtail on butterfly milkweed

 

Photo dump & other notes

 I realized I had too many pictures to wait through two weeks.  So here's a quick photo dump.

tomato zoo:  'German Johnson' caged "pink" tomatoes

foreground: oregano and chives

All these lettuces were sown at the same time.  left: 'Green Ice', center: 'New Red Fire', right (sparse): 'Rouge D'Hiver'

'New Red Fire'

'Beit Alpha'  cucumbers

left: 'Calima' bush beans; right: 'Lilian's Caseload' peas

'Seaside' spinach

I hope to soon be able to sit on this bench and snack on ripe cherry tomatoes that I plan to train up on the wagon wheel.

'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes

When the potatoes first started coming up, it wasn't obvious which were 'All Blue' and which were 'Yukon Gold'.  Now that they're bigger, it's easy to tell.

'All Blue'

'Yukon Gold'

The beets are sprouted.  I sprayed them with neem oil before I left, but I'm afraid in two weeks' time, when I return, they might be full of insect damage.

'Babybeat' beets

I also felt I had to spray the rose bushes with Sevin (carbaryl) because Japanese beetles usually start showing up around the first of June, and I wanted to give them a fighting chance.  I hate to do it, though, and frankly, it might have been a waste since the blooms aren't yet open, and that's what the beetles attack.  I don't like spraying Seven when honeybees are about, and I could hear lots of buzzing in the thyme flowers on the floor of the rose bed.  

When I got a closer look, I realized it was not bees, but flies.  Large flies.

While flies also pollinate, I didn't feel as badly about them encountering a contact insecticide as I would have honeybees.   But...

I didn't know what kind of fly these were, as I don't think I've seen them before, and certainly not in the large numbers there were.  I set Google Lens to identifying them, and when I learned that they are in the Tachinid family, I felt badly again.  The Tachinids I'm used to seeing are much smaller.  Tachinid flies are quite beneficial besides their pollinating ability, as they parasitize caterpillars, so they could be a big help to control vegetable pests.  On the other hand, if they parasitize butterfly caterpillars, I wouldn't like that.  So I don't know how to feel about the whole deal.  Maybe I'll just call it a wash.

I'm amazed at the two Golden Muscat grapevines.  Early this spring I had to dig them out of the garden proper where they were taking over.  To do so, I had to disentangle them, so I chopped most of the tops off as well as most of the roots. There was about the same amount under gound as above ground - no more than two feet in each direction - when I put them in.  I just stuck them in the ground in the wildflower bed at the base of two birdhouse poles, watered them in, and left them to their own salvation.  Not only did they salvage themselves despite the dry March and April we had, they seem to be undaunted.

Overnight one night, somebody's baby fell into the basement window well.  Its mother may not have told it the cautionary tale of Peter Rabbit.  Although it was small, possums can scratch and bite (and hiss and growl, which are very unnerving, but not harmful), so it was quite the undertaking to get it out without injuring myself or it. I tried to prod it to walk up a board, but it was having none of it.  It rutted up some dead bald cypress leaves and stuck its head under them.  I assume, like a human baby, it thought if it couldn't see me, I couldn't see it.  

I tried to hoist it up using two thick pieces of tree limb, but couldn't keep it balanced on them. Finally, I lowered a bucket down over top with a quick flip to turn it upright, scooping the creature inside. Luckily it wasn't quick enough to get out before I lifted it out to the yard.  It moved quite slowly, probably worn out from its travails.  

Poor thing was rather lost when I turned it loose, and rather than running, ambled around in circles a while before it slowly struck out for somewhere else. I hope it found its way home before a large bird of prey spied it. (I once saw a bald eagle eating a possum at the edge of the yard.  It didn't leave much behind but fur.) 

Won't this baby's mom be surprised if it does show up!  "How on earth did you get out of that trap?!" Stories will be told for generations.

See you in a couple of weeks after I've spent the hours necessary to get two weeks' worth of weeds out of my garden and clip out dead flowers.

Oh how I wish it would rain

The weather forecast keeps teasing rain, and it never happens.  Plants I've grown from seed are ready to go in the ground, so they have. And I've been forced to do a lot of watering.

We went from a very cool April (with some unfortunate freezing) to a very hot May - temperatures in the upper 80s.  Such is gardening in Missouri.  Maybe everywhere nowadays.

Lettuces I sowed earlier are coming up sporadically and sparsely.

Peas ('Kelvedon Wonder' and 'Lillian's Caseload') are up and coming along nicely, and the 'Calima' bush green beans I planted next to them are just now coming out of the ground.  The straw paths I made this year were apparently much more loosely baled than the bales I used last year, and these are just falling apart and blowing everywhere.  

Transplanted wasabi radishes are looking okay.  But I don't know how they're supposed to look.  I planted them once before and didn't get anything useful from them.  If they don't produce anything of use this year, I won't be trying again.

'Seaside' spinach - my first go at this - looks good.  It looks good to the rabbits, too.  It has a mild taste and a sturdy leaf.

That snap freeze we had got my potatoes, but they've come out of it and don't seem to be any worse for the wear.  This year I'm growing 'Yukon Gold', which I've grown before and know to be delicious, and 'All Blue', a purple variety. The picture below is 'All Blue'.

Hoping to get my small bed at the edge of the wildflower garden fleshed out, I purchased some small plants from the Missouri Wildflowers Nursery in Jefferson City.

The bed looks over the rest of the garden between the wildflower garden and a cut flower plot and the roses.  I envision it as a lovely place to sit and gaze some day.  Except it's awfully hot in the summer when everything is in full bloom, so I probably won't be doing any long term sitting.

Honeybees were out early this year, and they seem to appreciate the shallow water dish where they can sit at the edge and drink.

And it's apparently baby bunny season.

'English Charm' iris is supposed to be double-blooming, but this is the third year it's bloomed, and it's only been once in the spring; nothing in the fall.  At least it's charming that once.

'English Charm'

'English Charm'

The same is true for 'Victoria Falls'.

The oriental poppies have tons of buds this year.  

I revamped the pet cemetery, and hope I can keep it going until the rains come - if they come at all this year.  Chances are not looking good.  

Speaking of not looking good...yikes!  My 'Phenomenal' lavender died way back this year.  I don't know if it simply ran its normal life course or if the dry winter did it in.  I'm trying to nurse what's left long enough to get some of the living branches to root on their own.

 

I have no idea what name this iris has, but it looks a lot like 'Mother Earth'.

Until next time...rain dances welcome!