What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

I just checked the buckets and the cart that I use as a rain gauge. 5" of rain since Thursday, more on the way this weekend and possibilities next week.

Nothing like some of you are getting. Be safe! Sending positive waves.

 

[WthrLady]

Before

After

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

We need little bit of that rain...we hadn't seen any for days here.
And my garden is so young and tender that I'm having to water twice a day...and fight the teen chicks outta it!
I looked over the deck down below yesterday and saw Polish (who is actually a silver laced polish) in it and hollered at him. He gave me a big "squawk" then threw his feathers all out at me like he was going fly. I guess that was his way of telling me...
"U wanna garden, then put a fence round it!)

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Morning all.
Storm pounded us.
It stayed just below severe limits officially, but to go through it I'm shocked.

In came in looking like a classic plains mothership but it moved SO slowly.
It went midnight dark at 815 at night and the winds howled to 52 mph for over 15 minutes.
Sheets of rain knocked the visibility down to less than 50 yards and we got just under 2 inches of rain in less than 30 minutes.

The fact there was no hail was shocking actually.

As it passed the sun had just set so there was just enough light between storms to go out and check for damage; One crooked ear of corn and a broken elastic tie on the garden fence, and two snapped apple tree branches on a sapling that is already on the list to be culled.. OMG that was it! All of our wind mitigation put in last year WORKED! (This time)

I swear when I put the flashlight on the sunflowers they looked at me and said, "bit breezy wasn't it?!" LOL.

Chickens were sleeping, alpacas only glanced up from their evening cud chewing and yawned.

Remarkable.

DH and I decided to cull out the orchard. Me mostly, as I am the one that works it. There is something in the soil in half the orchard that is keeping trees from thriving or outright killing them. We have that problem with maples on this hill too. It's some fungal or bacterium, can't remember which. My neighbor on the next acreage has the same problem, No amount of feeding, spraying or irrigation fixes it. Trees not in the area are slow to grow but not moving backwards. So I'll mark trees that will be removed, plug their irrigation outlet and well let the whole area go to a wildflower field that will only be mowed in the fall. The remaining orchard trees will be allowed to do their thing and will keep their individual water lines in case of drought.

This has been a 7 year battle. All the 40 trees have been replanted at least once, if not 3 times, food, water, spraying, note keeping, soil checks, giant holes with fresh growing soil, root treatments, deer invasions, hail storms, freezes in June. Nope, there is a clear line of good soil zone and bad out there, so I will stop trying to force it to work and instead will work with it. (Yes, these trees are local purchased/grown trees from this area, for this area.)

We too are struggling with our front yard keeping trees alive! We have been here 7 years and we've had 5 different type trees die in an area 10yds or so. So frustrating! And soooo expensive!

 

[WthrLady]

Yup.
Bet there's something in it from construction.

ALL the tree dead zones at our ranch are within spitting distance (25-50 yards of the county road system or house build)

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Yup.
Bet there's something in it from construction.

ALL the tree dead zones at our ranch are within spitting distance (25-50 yards of the county road system or house build)

Probably...although this land (before being turned into a subdivision 10 years ago like every other piece of land) was a farm and they allowed a factory to dump shoe sole materials onto it. We have a Japanese maple that is thriving and has been for 5 years! But no other trees make it!

 

[WthrLady]

Drizzling and foggy out, but cooler, so it feels gross out.
The house is closed but too cool to run the AC so I kicked on the air circulator.

The lower level has been reclaimed from the great Dorm Dump of 2021 and now I can build my fabric wall so I don't have to look at the storage side from the sewing side, not sure I'll like it feeling smaller though. But for the cost of a PVC rod and a couple of frost sheets, I won't be out anything. So I'll try it.

Running into the city to get more hardware for an antique cabinet repair. It keeps popping open and it's driving me NUTS, so new snap closures it is, new handles I think as well.

Will top dress feed the garden this week before the next rain. Lord knows it needs no more liquid. As soon as we dry out I'll get some copper sulfate on the tomatoes. We've been so hot and humid, fungus MUST be about to blow.

DH is eating the Cloudy Day tomatoes as fast as they turn red.
I think the ones that have been red were little green marbles in the greenhouse. So far I am not impressed with their size. I hope that improves with real soil time.

Lost a hen to, I THINK, age. She was a good old girl. She just slowed down the past two weeks. Sleeping a lot, wandering the yard, with others, just enjoying the sunshine and breezes. She was 5. NO other symptoms or issues.

OK everyone. go out and hang with the earthworms and have a great day in the dirt.

 

[Elyrian1]

Still all sick here, so no big plans. It stormed yesterday! Rocked the boat (rv), so to speak, lol. Was a good thing though because I didn't get out to water the plants yesterday.

 

[BReeder!]

I swear when I put the flashlight on the sunflowers they looked at me and said, "bit breezy wasn't it?!" LOL.

I was not as fortunate. Lost a sunflower here in the storm. It was over 4ft tall already and the stem was at last 1.5" if not 2" in diameter. It broke just above the ground. I have a corn stall leaning too, but that one was from some extra seed I just tossed into the 3 sisters patch and it took to growing.

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

We need little bit of that rain...we hadn't seen any for days here.
And my garden is so young and tender that I'm having to water twice a day...and fight the teen chicks outta it!
I looked over the deck down below yesterday and saw Polish (who is actually a silver laced polish) in it and hollered at him. He gave me a big "squawk" then threw his feathers all out at me like he was going fly. I guess that was his way of telling me...
"U wanna garden, then put a fence round it!)

I don't know how big your garden is, but we used PVC pipes stuck over rebar we pounded into the ground to make a hoop structure and then large binder clips to attach netting all the way around. It does a good job of keeping them out here and I can take the binder clips off and drop the netting to work in there if I'm not walking all the way inside. When it is really hot I can put netting over the top too to give the plants a little shade.