Growing

It has turned warm and I have been hot. This happens when I go down to town to work for the clients. It is now the oddest sensation. I have acclimated to northern yankee blood at this elevation. I used to freeze when the temperature would dip below 70. Now I bake when the temperature goes above 75.

The warm has kicked the roadside vegetable garden into visible growth and the beginnings of heavy production.



The yellow squash and the one zucchini that some how became four because I couldn't bare to throw away good plants are making squash.



The corn is up and putting on some size. Tomatoes are setting. Pole beans are blooming. Potatoes are doing their thing under ground. Magda squash, I think are fruiting and Hubbard squash is vining. Carrot tops are growing big. The peppers wait for extended warmth I guess. They are always the last to to get going.



We have been eating lettuce, sugar snap peas and a few other salad greens. We're having turnips for lunch tomorrow. I should check on the beets.

All is not well in the roadside vegetable garden though. The radish always turn bad fast and it seems you only manage to get a few to eat. I think I am tired of wasting space on them. The spinach has been troublesome two years in a row now. I get poor germination and then they just disappear. Some critter must like them. I'm lucky to get just a couple of plants. The cantaloupe also have a failure to thrive. Between the slugs, rolly pollies, grasshoppers and initial cool temperatures they sulk or get eaten up.

The third seeding of cucumbers is finally making it past the seedling stage. I put styrofoam cups around them to keep the grasshoppers, slugs and rolly pollies away. The grasshoppers have been a true menace this year.

I tried using diatomaceous earth for insect control, but the monsoon kept washing it away. I resorted to slug bait and that helped, but it too would dissolve in the wet soil and mega downpours from thunderstorms. At some point I may need to invest in row covers and check out the biocontrol, Semaspore Bait (Nosema locustae) for the locust.

We won't be lacking for produce though, even with these irritants.



Down at the cozy cabin two more walls grow from the earth. A determined 80 year old building contractor wants to build him a wall. Tomorrow I will be there to tote the blocks closer to their final resting place.

It's not bad looking and will blend in if not fade away pretty well.



The greater expanse and visual exposure of the dry stack stone walls will over power it I hope. What you see of the block wall now is just the beginning. It will rise to six blocks high next to the cabin.

I work on the lower stone wall, not wanting to rush it even though it is needed to help hold the footing for the wall above. The section of the slope with the dry stacked stone wall is the area that needed the most fill.



A summer garden grows over the mountain top. A self seeded native Hydrangea arborescens blooms in the sunny utility meadow.



Yarrow, Achillea millefolium makes a nice stand in one location. More often it scatters itself about in small clusters.



A late iris blooms. I'm too lazy at the moment to try and determine its type and or name. It's pretty. That is all that matters to Bulbarella.



Rambling shrub roses dot the wild cultivated garden.



Mostly in pinks and reds.



The lilies are here. There is a stinking suspicion that they have reverted to some standard color from the pretty picture in the catalog. Where did that blah washed out pink thing come from?



This one is very red.



And so was tonight's sunset.



From atop a cool mountain where it isn't quite as hot.