On The Other Hand...

This praying mantis on the end of the clothesline post is little.  But cute? Ah, no.  An alien among us, perhaps.  While I took the picture, its head would swivel to watch me stumbling around to change angles. It was listening to me telling it to "hold STILL." It did -- a bit.

Is Anything Little, Cute?

"I'm little;  therefore, I'm cute."

Or is that "we"?

The Tomato Forecast

I can't ever just "wait and see."  Every walk through the garden includes speculation about the coming harvest.  So, what is the tomato forecast, you ask?  

Well, the roma types are setting and growing fruit well.  The actual fruits do not much like the heat, I've noticed, since there are strange kinds of damage that I'm unfamiliar with -- so blame it on the heat.

But there are tomatoes on those plants.

The big table varieties, Mortgage Lifter and German Pink, are not showing any fruit.  At least I'm not seeing any.  I always hope that when they start turning red I'll suddenly spot many more -- but at this point they don't seem to be there.  Here's hoping I'm wrong...

Yesterday we got almost 1/2 an inch of rain in a horizontal downpour that I missed (off grocery shopping).  Chance for more today, but we're also watering.

The Onion Harvest

They are drying well in the basement -- since we got the dehumidifier going.

Serious Mulch

Finally, we have some serious-looking mulch.  Last Saturday we got some spread around.

Two rows of beans above and cuke plants beginning (at the flag).

Two rows of kidney beans.

Grapes to the right, zuchini to the left.  In the middle, peppers, and far off at the top, melons.

On the day we returned from Colorado, the boys had all been out to a harvested wheat field where the farmer was baling the straw.  He sold it at two-fifty per bale if you picked it up in the field.  They loaded many more bales than they should have on the trailer (50), made it home, and now we can defend against the weeds.  Of course, now that it's hot, no weeds are sprouting or growing.  In fact, last night I witnessed a first:  bindweed wilting in the heat and dryness, while the grapes looked okay.

Tomorrow the heat is supposed to ease.  That means ninety-four instead of one hundred.

Growing Along

A week ago.

Today. 

These are the heat-lovers: sweet potatoes.  Lots of water and lots of heat make nice sweet potatoes. Looking good.

On the other hand:

This little nasturtium (next to a grape) is certainly a month old.  But its leaves are curled, there are some holes, and it is not happy.  Oh well. I shouldn't be surprised that a plant that loves Colorado Springs would hate Nebraska. It was a lovely February dream: banks of pale yellow flowers under the grape vines.

Lasted Until Eleven

It's hot--95 today.  But at 6AM it was cloudy with circling rumbles, and the gardening was very comfortable.

I got some weeding, some mulching, and the gathering-in of the last onions all done. Just because it's hot does not mean that it's dry, of course.  Most of the ground is not dried out yet.  But I did water some things because the last two-inch rain happened  10 days ago.


Driving to town, the corn is amazing.  I've never seen it look so perfectly dense -- all the same height, ears in the same spot, dark, dark green leaves.

Swords. In the Garden.

"Deadheading is a most important part of gardening...and I even deadhead my naturalized daffodils so that they do not deteriorate.  I have some old swords and I keep one sharpened for this job.  One can slash off a lot of heads in a very short time."  Margery Fish, 1956, quoted in The Penguin Book of Garden Writing

I want a sword to deadhead with, and I also want enough naturalized daffodils to need it!

(It occurs to me that I'm spending too much time around teenaged males.)

Hot, Hot, Hot

I have a job in air-conditioning all day long.

Why would I want to come home and garden when it's 98 degrees?  I don't.

Even Saturday morning feels like a long shot.

Like Gardening Under Water

The water is in the air, in the ground, and bursting through plant life.  It's a flood of LIFE!  I leave for nine days and come back to a deluge of life. Bumblebees and butterflies; raspberries up to my nose. July is usually hot and dry here on the plains.  This year we get hot and under water.

A disappeared onion bed.  Chives in the lower left corner, a young hollyhock in the right, and the rest is, well, weeds.

Anna and the hollyhock, which is  fairly bloomed out.  Echinacea in front.

Here are the sweet potatoes two weeks ago, when I was pulling onions.

The sweet potatoes this morning.

At the top of this row you can see two rows of beans I planted 9 days ago.

 In the forecast?  98 degrees tomorrow.

Under It

The water is in the air, in the ground, and bursting through plant life.  It's a flood of LIFE!  I leave for nine days and come back to a deluge of life. Bumblebees and butterflies; raspberries up to my nose. July is usually hot and dry here on the plains.  This year we get hot and under water.