June 11, 2019
Gardening can be like a dance. You need to learn how to lead, but be willing to follow. Temps above ninety are forecasted ahead so I'm removing the clear plastic that surrounds the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. Solarizing the ground around them doesn't sound like a good idea. I've learned that having a three foot diameter of plastic on the ground around my tomato plants cuts the water to them enough to prohibit their growth. It forced them to start ripening their fruit..
The one plant that was left uncovered put on monsterous growth and will undoubtedly produce an abundance of fruit. There are an enormous amount of simple things that can have significant effect in your garden. Learning how to apply them is part of the thrill of discovery. My gardening passion is not always exciting, but always fullfilling..
June 12, 2019
There are no still life's to be taken in the veggie garden this time of year. Everything is moving. There are a billion cell divisions going on in your crops every second. They are growing at an extrodinary rate. The water respiring off the tomatoes can be measured in pints per day. The sunlight on the straw heats it up, and the current that rises sucks the cool moist air out from under the plants leaves and it swirles in the air, rising and twisting like ribbons on a Maypole. Even the rocks and pebbles are changing. The tops are heating up and oxidizing, forming a patina of greyishness..
Their shadows creep slowly around them as the sun arcs, giving them the appearance of a new shape throughout the day. They cool in the evening releasing warmth into the ground. They are changing all night long. Photons exhibit more force on a light colored rock that reflects them than a dark one that absorbs them. In the full sunlight of the daytime the white rock must exhibit more force on the ground than the dark one. A white rock of the same mass as a black one must weigh more in the sunlight..
June 13, 2019
It got up to 97ð yesterday and the first thing I noticed in the garden was the spaghetti squash leaves starting to wilt. I poked my finger into the ground next to the stem and it was dry an inch down. I scraped a hole in the straw mulch next to the dry ground and it was wet. It must be time to push my mulch up closer to the plants stems. I put the sprinkler on the mound and within minutes the plant started perking up. The next thing I noticed was the strait necked squash starting to wilt. I watered it and made it happy..
Then one of my zucchini squash mounds began to wilt and I realized all the big leafed plants were affected by the heat more than other plants. Their big solar collecting leaves respired so much to keep themselves cool that they couldn't get enough water up out of the ground to remain crisp. The day turned out great though because I kept moving the sprinkler around every hour, and using the watering can to get the in between plants watered. Everything got watered, whether they needed it or not, because 97ð was predicted for the next day also. It was too hot to do anything in the garden except water, and that's just what I did..
