The roadside vegetable garden was fully planted and watered.
I have been enjoying the feral vegetable flowers and poppies for a few years now. It's fun to watch them roam.
But this is serious business mind you. The garden is now packed and loaded with beets, carrots, okra, tomato, pepper, beans, cucumber, summer and winter squash. There will be fine produce of some kind at some point.
Last year's undug potatoes are looking very good.
Some mulching happened. It needs to happen again. The seed bank in the soil is robust and most interesting. I just don't have time for major weeding. The roadside vegetable garden is the closest I get to a properly mulched flower bed in the wild cultivated gardens.
And from the outside you'ld never know.
Sunday morning was pleasant and productive enough. I went up to admire and water the roadside vegetable garden. Later that day, hail stones fell from the sky.
It rained hard enough and sideways enough for the loft window to leak and the rain to begin falling from the kitchen ceiling. That window has leaked from day one. Towels. I needed towels. That's when I found a mouse (?) was living in my bathroom cabinet. One hand towel was fully converted to a fluffy nest. Others were well sampled. It was a larder stocked full of dry cat food.
Hail, leaking roof, vermin in the towel draw. Button!!
That is about when I noticed a flash flood was washing through the garden. Culvert Falls was roaring. This is the second direct hit wash of the year.
Look close. Water flows through the eye of Creation.
Two hours later the rain stopped. Out I went. Piles of hail were still collected on the ground. The roadside vegetable garden and dung piles of mystery melons were pulverized. Tiny seedlings with but one limb to give and fresh tender plants just beyond were shattered into slices of green. There is nothing to do but wait. What survived? A half tray of Red Defender tomatoes did survive intact. There will be fine produce of some kind at some point.
I do believe the spell of ugly leaves has taken a new turn and will continue.
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4 comments:
I'm sorry about your flood but I'm so glad you are still writing. I drifted away from blogging and reading and into other pursuits, but not away from gardening. This year, with it's pandemic, has given me even more gardening time and I think the garden shows the attention. I'm looking forward to looking through your past posts to see the growth on your mountain.
I see Blotanical went by the wayside. I wish I'd kept the names of all the blogs I loved. Oh, well. I'm glad yours is still around.
Kim
Hi Kim, A Study in Contrasts Kim? I'm still here blogging. Other pursuits haven't intervened....yet. The flood was the easy part. The vermin and I are about to have a reckoning. The garden sits in a geologic old stream bed. In a big rain water can still flow and it is absorbed perfectly by the garden. Part luck and part gardening with the land as is.
That is a lot of water. Wow. Hail is never good for anything. I hope all survives.
Lisa I did casually mention to my neighbor across the byway that the previous owner's decomposing vats of pond scum that had created the spring in his driveway might have something to do with the increased amount of water flowing through my garden the last couple years. He does not like the spring in his driveway, a glacier in a good artic spell. I just need to be patient. Hail. This will be the year of ugly leaves.
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