As the Clouds Moved In
I haven’t been so excited to see rain clouds move in since I was a little kid. It’s been a very dry year in NW PA, and patches of my yard have lost all color. To keep everything growing well in the garden, I’ve been lugging around the hose, and a small lawn sprinkler. It’s not much work, but it requires constant attention. From time to time the sprinkler will freeze in one place, and require a bit of finagling to get it moving again. I’ve tried all manner of watering devices, and they all seem to fall short. My current setup includes several buckets strategically placed throughout the garden. I place the sprinkler on the bucket to add height, and allow the water to fly over the plants, rather then spraying into them.
I may soon invest in some heavy duty sprinklers, that come on a telescoping tripod. These must surely work better then the current system.
Melons and Corn
After the rain, the garden took on a beautiful glow, almost in appreciation to Mother Natures kindness. In the front are melons, and cucumbers, with a volunteer Mexican Husk Tomatillo marked with a stake. In the background corn grows. You may notice the ground covered in grasses. It’s nearly that point in the growing season when it becomes impossible to remove weeds. I’ve been pulling up the invasive ones, such as pig weed, but other then that, the garden plants will soon over take everything else.
Root Crops
Here is the section of the garden where most of the root crops are planted. These include carrots, beets, turnips, and potatoes. They too seem to glow in appreciation of the rain. In the background are more cucumbers, zucchini, peppers and lots of tomatoes. If your wondering just how many tomato plants are shown, I planted 361, and 4 have been removed due to an unknown ailment. There are also well over 100 pepper plants near the end of the garden, but they aren’t shown. You may ask “Why did you plant so much ?”, and my simple answer would be “Why not ?”.
