vegetables

Yellow Crookneck Summer Squash

Lucious Lopes

Golden Turnips and Helenor Rutabagas

Assorted Peppers with a clear demonstration of our weed problem

Daisy Gourds, just for fun

One of our hens is a rooster.  I realized this when I heard LOUD crowing at dawn!  It is a shame I don't have a better pic since he has magnificent feathers.  I'll keep trying but he does not stand still long enough to get a perfect shot.

Weather has been scorching hot.  No rain.  I will probably find broccoli casualties at the plot tomorrow.  Hurricane Earl(?) should bring some rain over the weekend, please.  Leaves are forsaking their trees, corn stalks have been turning dry and gold, dusk arrives too early; Autumn is sneaking upon the farmer.  I admit the nights feel cooler.  And of course the calendar shows September.  To where did the season flee?  I was here the whole Summer, yet every year it disappears without a clear good-bye.  Like an itinerant lover.

Baby Napoli and Yellowstone carrots

Columbian feathered Wyandotte eating overripe cukes

Brown Chinese goose doing perfect ballet move

Royal Palm turkey

Coreopsis

Finally water!!!

Not quite ready toms

Fantastic helpers Lauren and Emily

Oh! What an everyday tool for other produce growers, drip irrigation.  Not so for me, for years I hauled water from down the road.  Our trailer location has 2 water hydrants.  The Spring was so cold and wet that drip irrigation was not on my radar. June brought week after week of no rain, and temps in the 90's created stress for the plants, and me. I kept thinking it'll rain, it'll rain!  No, not a drop fell from those clouds.

Today I went to Nolt's and got "fitted" for my garden. All the line, connectors, valves, pressure regulator etc. to give my plants a drink. Now I know nothing about the particulars of drip tape.  I feared I would not be able to do it correctly.  Voila! It went together quite easily, and as I write all my plants are having a nice root soak.  Arrrggh, why didn't I do this weeks ago??? 

CSA members have been wonderful and very gracious concerning the absence of zukes and peppers in their shares.  This time last year the shares had squash, eggplant and artichokes.  I doubt the chokes are going to make it.  They are over at the other location without water.  It has been a less than ideal growing season.  Growers who have drip tape and greenhouses are the ones who have loads of toms, squash, peppers and cukes.

Perseverance is a plan.  I don't waste time (well not excessively) dwelling on all the stuff that's going haywire.  Instead, I plod slow and steady trying to remedy one problem as it appears, and ward off future catastrophes. This week will be a scorcher, stay cool mentally and physically.