Well, I’m baked—like a potato, though thankfully not wrapped in tin foil. In case you hadn’t noticed—it’s hot out there!!
It’s been a busy week, as ever. The garden is full of life, including plenty that we would mostly prefer to be elsewhere—wild turkeys and groundhogs, to name two.
On the weekend, Lindsay built turkey-proof cages over some of the most vulnerable crops, and today I sweltered in the heat, clearing around the electric fence. Hopefully these things will deter the critters.
As the weather turned from wet to hot, the plants have put on their running shoes. All the nutrients in our clay soil are available, and the clay keeps the ground moist long after sand would have dried out completely. So the pepper plants, the aubergines or eggplants, and the other hot season plants are stretching up and basking in the sun. The tomatoes are golf-ball sized, or at least, a few are. Only a few weeks away from beautiful juicy fresh tomatoes—I can’t wait!
The Country Fun summer campers helped out with some weeding yesterday, and today I tilled up that patch, ready for some more green beans to go in on the weekend. Now is the perfect time for us to clear and till any weedy areas, because exposed roots will die in the sun rather than manage to re-root themselves and grow on as if nothing had happened.
Nothing makes me appreciate our modern way of life more than comparing what I can do on my own, with hand tools, compared to using a powered machine. Clearing a bed ready for planting can, in ideal conditions, be done in minutes with a small tiller, instead of an hour of digging. Quite humbling. And also that so many people are still subsistence farmers—growing the food that they eat, and pretty much, that’s all. That Lindsay and I can grow enough vegetables—even if only for the short Canadian growing season—for multiple families really is quite something. And the tiller, strimmer, my car… all help with that.
Ok, enough of my rambling—on to the pictures! Actually, as there wasn’t a blog post last week, many of these pictures are from then. The tomatoes, particularly, are much bigger now.
Until next week (when hopefully I’ll be normal temperature—26 degrees would be lovely, thanks!)
Gardener Dave