overnight

 This happened:

More rain (of course) and perhaps a bit of wind last night brought down a tree that has been standing dead for quite some time.

Acer helping assess the situation from the Upper West Side.
Those pole beans suddenly look a lot closer, don't they, Acer?

 

The length of the bole extends all the way through the garden, east to west, compressing a section of perimeter fence which must be repaired as soon as possible. Fortunately it's the one place on the property where a gap in the six-foot perimeter paddock fence is inaccessible to the goats because of the inner garden fence of stock panels. Of course something non-goat could get into the garden from outside now - and I'm suddenly glad I didn't plant corn this year - but there's nothing I can do about that until the tree has been removed. Repairing that perimeter fence will be a job, because the it runs along the top of a steep bank covered in grape vines and precious milkweed and chin-high bee balm and many other plants. I will almost certainly do far more damage to plants than the treefall did.

Seriously. The falling tree had no way to avoid the pole bean rows and some of the jungle-like vegetation within the garden that has persisted through repeated torrential rains. A few of the stalwart catnip shrubs and fragile milkweed are on the ground. But it's quite marvelous the way the tree avoided - in some places, by inches - the raspberries, dill, okra, and blueberries. And the grapes. The beautiful grapes.

I am so grateful.

Right after taking this snap I very roughly patched that gap where the trunk is resting on the garden fence, so the goats will think twice before trying to climb up on the bole and use it for a bridge. (If just one goat gets through that gap, I can kiss the garden goodbye for 2023.) And I called a logger friend who said he will try to come by tomorrow before noon to have a look at removing the bole. I suggested he bring a friend. This is going to be at least a two-person job and I will be less than a half-person-worth of assistance. In fact, my entire role will probably be shouting - over the roar of a chainsaw - things like, "There's a tiny blueberry bush right behind you!" and "Please don't crush the raspberries, they are finally thriving!"

Fingers crossed.

~~~~~

summer

I am so happy that the struggling bean plants are producing beans!

The first big bowl of beans salad lasted about 36 hours, which included one breakfast and one midnight snack. I've already picked another batch for the second bowl. This may not be a highly productive year for beans, but I'm grateful for every one. It doesn't feel like Summer until there's a bowl of beans salad in the fridge

In other gardening news, my Occasional Helper was here this morning and we worked in the terrace garden, leveling another section about six feet square using muck from the South Paddock and old hay bedding from the Peace Pavilion. And I carefully cleared away - using my pocket knife, the smallest machete in the world - all the other plants that have been growing around three little blueberry bushes purchased last year. They are still tiny bushes, but they managed to hang on through Winter and "Spring" and are really starting to grow.

I keep yawning so wide my eyes are watering - I could fall asleep at 4 in the afternoon! But I'm going to have to shake off this lethargy and try to soak Mallow's sore hoof. Mallow is unlikely to consider this is a great idea, and he's a chunky fellow with a lot of opinions, so it may not go well. Must try though, as he's been favoring a hoof for several days and two treatments with my usual hoof medications haven't helped. On to Plan C.

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farm report

 

Carrots!

Lettuce!

Beets!

A few days with some sun, and the new raised beds are full of activity.

Dear Gardening Pals, I need advice about radishes, please. In the snap below, does the long stem below the first leaves just mean they got leggy due to all the rain, or does it mean they weren't planted deeply enough? Is that the part that should be below ground, turning into a radish? Should I be adding a little soil along the radish rows to bury the stems? 

It probably seems funny that I'm asking for help with the plant most often recommended for toddlers to plant in My First Garden, but I really don't know anything about growing them. (And I always recommend winter squash for a child's first garden.) So any advice appreciated!

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reaching for the light

In for a break, after what seems the first "normal" gardening session of 2023. For two solid/liquid months I've been attempting bits of garden work between rains and chores. And trying - as Jane commented in an earlier post - "not to get too attached to an idea of what the outcome of the garden will be." A perfect description.

Practicing non-attachment by admiring daylilies.
Also ferns and grapevines.

As part of my sensible goal to do more gardening at waist-height and closer to the house, I invested in two Birdie beds during a 20% off sale last Autumn. I did not expect to have to wait til June 21st to actually get the first one filled and planted, but that's how long it took, working bit by bit over many days to gather up the muddy materials to fill the base. Leaves that I chopped and saved last year. All sorts and sizes of soggy sticks from every paddock, gathered in cartloads on rare days when the mud in the paddocks was not too deep for the cart wheels. A load of shavings from cleaning out the hen suite and barn. Also layers of actual mucky mud, which is so heavy it had to wait for days when my Occasional Helper could be here to fill a bin and heave it into a raised bed.

On the afternoon when I could finally start plinking tiny seeds into the soil, thunder began to roll in and I had to finish up quickly and hustle through evening barn chores. Not quite fast enough, though - the deluge arrived in full force, escorted by thunder and lightning. Since I was already soaked, I thought about finishing up the chores before heading back to the house, but the chores would have required standing in water and wrestling with metal gates, so instead I sheltered in the barn with Azalea and Hazel as lightning cracked overhead. We had a cozy visit after agreeing by mutual consent to talk about anything but the weather.

And look at the first raised bed, just one week and more rains later!

Actual rows of seedlings! My thrill level was off the charts.

Three kinds of greens, two kinds of broccoli,
and an assortment of radishes.

The second bed was filled and planted on the 28th, also just before a thunderstorm. This morning I checked, and radishes - planted between rows of carrots - are already reaching for the light. I've never been able to grow carrots here, so that bed will get a lot of checking. And I usually don't plant radishes at all, but this could be the Year of the Radish.

Many tall plants, including bee balm, have been flattened by the rains,
but some milkweed has managed to stand.

Back in the first week of June, I planted pole beans, along with dill, okra, and kale, in the terrace garden. In the wet weeks that followed, it seemed likely many seeds would rot in the ground, and I just had to wait for things to dry out at least a little before replanting or working in what is usually my main vegetable garden.

Roughly 80% of the 2023 blueberry harvest.

Well, yesterday and today have been beautiful days! Today the terrace garden area was more accessible, and not just a saturated and dripping jungle of undergrowth. I puttered happily, smacking mosquitoes, pulling up goat snacks for the boys who followed me down, and releasing the few tiny dill seedlings and young okra plants from an overstory of galinsoga and catnip. I patched two rows of bean netting while apologizing to the scant bean plants for borrowing their stock-panel trellising back in May for short-term goat use. The netting was intended as a "starter" trellis to be supported by reinstalled stock panels long before the beans needed the height. But I was never able to get into the terrace garden to replace the panels, and as much as I miss my lovely stock panels in the terrace garden, I imagine the pole beans miss them more. The good news is, I've used the panels to divide the Upper West Side in a new way, so that most of the herd can now access that area simultaneously but in two groups. Which is especially nice when the sun is finally shining after they've spent days cooped up in a shelter or walking along bits of scrap lumber to keep their feet out of the muck.

Doesn't it look like this bee is hugging the flower?

That's how I feel today.

~~~~~

wordless wednesday

 

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