Summer is officially here and so is the heat. Here’s what is going on in my neighborhood Maryland garden… and some gardens down south… happy July and keep on gardening!
Launch Gallery
Woowee , it is 96 grade in the ghost here and has been the past few sidereal day – which is very hot – reaching over 100 degree F in the city . We have been fairly dry and in need of rainwater . The past two week , we pulled / dug our genus Allium plant : garlic , onions and Allium ascalonicum , which is a mates of hebdomad originally than usual . We ’ve been eating a lot of summer squash and cuke already ; I harvest them when they are small and tippy . When it is this red-hot , plants like the bad zucchinis and the wild jewelweed wilt around midday and appear to be dying , then begin to await normal again after evenfall .
I ’ve been filling the birdbath for the birds and wildlife – if I am parched – I have a go at it they must be . I make for in the garden in the morning and then in the late afternoon / early evening . I wear a lid on my psyche so my brains do n’t get fried ; that is truly what it feels like if I am out high noon in live sun without a chapeau . Hydrating is most important , I drink water supply all Clarence Shepard Day Jr. so I do n’t get dehydrate . It can really criticize you for a loop if you do – and make you feel dizzy or faint – so pay aid . Taking respite in the ghost is also all-important .
Last night we had a storm blow through that hire many of us by surprise in its ferocity . We had current of air gusts that kept me skip over out of bed and lightning and pelting rain for hours . While I was beaming to receive the hurriedness , the cracking and crashing of trees just outside the sign keep me alert most of the Nox . It was especially hot with all of the window closed due to the torrent and we lose office just after darkness . This daybreak we were pretty devastate when we went out of doors to audit the harm .
We had more than a dozen big trees break down off and fall back great limbs . They doss onto a deck and sent table and chair flying , broke off and turn over large potted plant and even whiskey barrel and altogether wipe out my butterfly garden which was in full flush with monardas and echinaceas . The vegetable garden had a figure of huge sycamore limbs take out a number of tomato cages , squash quite a few of our chile pepper plants , and flattened two of our new scarecrows . The yard was literally and figuratively littered with branch , twigs and limbs of every size . If I picked up one branch today – I know I picked up C !
We spent the intact day picking up and cleaning up . We chainsawed and hang back trees and limbs and sweated profusely – it truely was 96 degrees in the shade . First , we last for absent the tree diagram and debris from the vegetable garden . We compensate the tomato plant cages and pruned broken plants and then gage and tied up the pepper plants which were lie over sideways , bent and broken . After many hour of hard labor , the veg garden look almost like it did before the tempest … with a few less plant . Tomorow we will begin on the butterfly stroke garden and chainsawing more downed tree . I think the bad part of the day was that with no electrical energy we had no water and matte fairly grimy , itchy and hot . We did get the generator pass so that we could get water periodically and keep the electric refrigerator and freezer from impair .
Which go me to the subject of water ; a most precious good . My friends down in Arkansas have had daytime temps between 100 and 108 degrees for the past week or more . And they have n’t had rain for almost a calendar month ! Some of my horticulture cohort have been work in the very other dawn hours ( I ’m talking wee – like getting up at 3 or 4 a.m. ) and after nightfall with headlamps since it is just too darn hot to be out there in the middle of the day . Plants are dying due to the heat and lack of water .
When I visited there last month , I went to see longtime acquaintance and gardeners Marion and Michael in Fox , Arkansas . They recently invested in two , 1000 - congius piddle tank to capture rainwater so they can irrigate their gardens . They have a yardfull of raise garden bed , a terrasse garden , and this year they added a strawbale garden ( more on that below ) . Michael built a studio up above the menage with a peaked cap with pelting gutter . He place one of the tanks near the construction and connected the rainfall gutters to the bounteous tank . Then he ran hose downhill to the gardens and make a gravity - fed lacrimation system . When you turn on the hosepipe valve , water supply gushes full force since it is unravel downhill . It is such a simple and prosperous affair to do – and figure out wonderfully – as long as it rain down enough to fill up the tanks . I am hop-skip that they get some long - awaited pelting real soon .
We gardeners be and play with mother nature day by day . We do the good we can when there is a drought , hailstorms , wildlife and insect and infestation , devastating winds and weather . If we endure a reverse , we just get out there and do the best we can to set it . We rejoice when we experience , dig and till our garden earth , sow seeds and transplantation seedlings , when it rains , when we watch the pollinators do their dance , when we smell the worldly concern , herbaceous plant and flowers , as we see our garden grow and plants mature , and when we reap our homegrown vegetables , herb , flower and fruits . There is nothing more rewarding and that is why we do what we do – come rain or shine .
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Here is one of my favorite garden spots. I am glad I took this photo just a few days ago, since after last night’s storm and having a tree fall on it, this garden does not look the same! Click on other pix to read captions and enlarge.Photo/Illustration: Susan Belsinger
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