July 5, 2010

Yesterday evening I took a walk around the garden and the yard with my camera. It had been another hot day. In the past thirty days we have had sixteen days with temperatures reaching ninety and higher. Today and tomorrow are forecast to be ninety eight. I had spent most of the day hand watering almost every plant with an open ended hose, and also some rows with drip hoses laid on the ground–the sprinkler is useless because it breaks water into droplets that easily evaporate in this heat and low humidity, so even though it throws out plenty of water, very little gets to the plant. The air gets the water instead.

Well anyway, back to my camera….the following are pictures that I took at the end of the day when things began to cool off, and I want to share them with you.


Honey bees need water too! I keep a saucer of water(with a few "landing rocks")for the bees. Usually I need to fill it twice a day. Bees will get water from dew, pools, etc. At times, I have seen them crawl up the garden hose to get water that lines the inside! This gives em a break, especially in this heat.


This is buckwheat in flower. I throw seeds around in the spring and let it go. Buckwheat is a great cover crop, and also an attractant for beneficial insects, which is the reason I plant it around the garden.


Yellow chard...chard is a beautiful plant, and one of my favorite greens.


This is a tomato, or tobacco, hornworm, which can devour a tomato plant in days! Every evening Kath and I walk through the tomatoes and pull them off. This one though has a problem - the white pods on its back are cocoons of a parasitic wasp that lays eggs inside the worm. The larvae feed on the worm, then make cocoons and mature into adults that will seek out more of these worms. This worm is no longer feeding - its hours are numbered. Nature has its own way of controlling the bad bugs!


This is garlic that I dug over the past few days and hung to dry. This was planted last October, and has been in the garden nine months.I will save enough bulbs from this harvest to seed this fall for next years crop.


This is a flower from the apple gourd plant. Gourds flower in the evening, last through the night, and shrivel in the new daylight.I think that they are the most attractive flowers in the garden.

I like walking around and seeing these things - its part of farming that makes it all the better!