Mid-Summer Garden Report

June was very hard on the garden with daytime highs in the mid to upper 90s (30s C) and only seven-eights inch of rain since mid-May. I spent most days using our wood chips to mulch. I used our collected rainwater to water the beds, dressed with compost, and then applied a thick layer of mulch. I worked in small sections because when the air is that hot and dry, moisture evaporates right out of the ground. I’ve been able to keep most of of the garden alive, but it struggles.

Still, I have some nice photos to show you, although production has slowed down and much of the garden seems stunted. Cantaloupes, for example are small, and have stopped flowering.

But they’ve been tasty. Green beans are slow too, and I’ve only been able to can six quarts so far.

Most of the cucumbers have been bitter from the lack of water,

but the plants are loaded with flowers and honeybees.

The next two rows of trellises are tomatoes, along with more dill, sweet basil, and multiplier onions.

The first of my tomatoes all suffer from blossom end rot. Gardeners know this is caused by a lack of calcium, but it’s not necessarily because calcium is lacking in the soil. It can be caused by something interfering with the plants calcium uptake, things like not enough moisture in the soil.

Another place loaded with honeybees is in the popcorn.

Last year I was rather unceremoniously corrected by a number of people when I mentioned that I looked forward to our bees helping pollinate the corn. Corn is wind pollinated, which of course is true, but having seen bees in my corn in the past I added corn to the list of plants my bees would help.

It would have been more correct to say that the corn helps the bees rather than the bees help the corn.

My bees have been busy in the popcorn stuffing their pollen baskets! And if they happen to knock down some of the pollen laden anthers which fall on the tassels, I won’t complain.

A dry summer is hard on honeybees because less is blooming, so there is less nectar and pollen for them to live on. When that’s the case they must utilize their honey stores, which can mean a smaller honey harvest in the fall.

Unfortunately we cannot collect enough water to water everything. I focus on the garden, but other things like fruit trees and bushes suffer.

July is my month to harvest blueberries. The bush is loaded but the berries are small. Without enough water they will remain small and not be sweet and juicy when they ripen. Rain is in the forecast, though, so here’s hoping.