Rain, Rain Go Away!

The other night we got over two inches of rain in an hour or so. There were also heavy winds. The report from my husband that night was that the garden was flattened. I didn’t worry too much, though. I know that plants bounce back and they did for the most part. The beefsteak tomato plant had to be restaked and I had to move the zucchini off the eggplants. The potatoes looked like something had been laying on them but they have since perked up too.

Flattened potatoes

The rattlesnake beans have reached and exceeded the top of their trellis. The whole thing was a bit saggy after the storm but I think that was caused just as much by the weight of the plants as by the wind and heavy rain. I thought that next year I might make a taller trellis but I don’t want to have to bring a ladder into the garden to pick the beans.

Rattlesnake beans topping out their trellis

 The high amount of rain we’ve been getting this summer hasn’t been too bad for the garden in general. Drainage seems to be good and I haven’t had to water since probably May when I first planted. The chard, however, is suffering. It has been infected with cercospora leaf spot. The fungal disease attacks chard, spinach and beets. Favorable conditions are high heat, high humidity, and prolonged leaf wetness at night. It can survive in the soil for up to two years. Infected plants should be buried to keep it from spreading.

Chard infected with cercospora leaf spot

I’ve been able to salvage a few leaves of chard that hadn’t gotten any spots yet but I think the rest is a loss. I harvested the spinach before it became an issue and it hasn’t seemed to cause too much trouble with the beets. I don’t eat the beet greens, anyway, and we’re not in the business of selling beetroot by the pound. In severe cases, the fungus keeps the beetroot from growing to full size. So, I’ll bury the infected plants and choose another bed for the chard, beets and spinach next year. I’m certainly glad this is just a home hobby garden for me and not a commercial enterprise.

Here are a few more pictures from in and around the garden:

Two honeybees working in an acorn squash blossom

Redneck rabbit

Rattlesnake bean flower

Baby lettuce leaves

Mama deer

Lovely pink turnip

Going to Seed

I was finally able to get out into the garden this evening during a very brief break in the rain. It has been very wet over the last several days. We got more than an inch and a half of rain just over the weekend and it has only slowed since.

Proof that the sun actually exists

I was glad that the rains paused so I could get a little work done. The garden does not look any worse for the recent soaking. I think the raised beds have allowed for decent drainage. The spinach and arugula have needed to be dealt with for some time now. The spinach bolted fairly quickly with the early arrival of hot weather. The arugula has since gone to seed too. I didn’t realize that it would get prickly as it got older. The flowers are lovely though.

Spinach gone to seed

Lovely little arugula flowers

I pulled out all the spinach and most of the arugula. Under the larger plants there were a half-dozen or so seedlings just starting out so I left them. Over the weekend I got a packet of mixed lettuce seeds. It certainly was not an ideal time to plant with the ground being so wet but at least I didn’t have to water the seeds in. It started raining again maybe half an hour after I went inside to wash the greens. I only planted about half the packet so if the seeds end up rotting instead of growing, I’ll have another shot at it.

After pulling the spinach and arugula and planting more seeds

In other garden news, the beets and turnips are growing very well. We’ll be eating some of them soon. All four varieties of tomatoes have set fruit with the Early Girls looking particularly nice. My sugar snap peas blew over in high winds we had a couple weeks ago. I did not realize they were going to grow five or six feet tall or I would have built better support. They’ve bounced back, though, and we should be eating peas by this weekend. And the corn is already knee-high days before the Fourth of July.

Early Girl tomatoes

Bent but not broken pea plants

The corn seems to be enjoying the weather

Oh, and guess who had babies…

Munchkin in the back yard

Yeah, and her too….

Twins!

Guess Who was in the Garden Again

We had a house rabbit for many years. I should have known from that experience that rabbits do not give up easily. Yesterday morning when I looked out the window on my way down the stairs, as I do every morning, I saw a pair of ears in the garden. So, I rallied the troops (my husband), put on my barn boots, grabbed my camera and headed outside. You know that little break in the fence I mentioned before? Well, that was the spot where the rabbit chewed through the mesh fence to get into the garden. We knew that it could easily chew through the mesh if it wanted to but I didn't think it would make the effort. I guess I was wrong. It got out through the same hole after a brief panic among the raised beds. As soon as it was out of the garden it settled down maybe 20 feet away and started chomping on grass. Apparently once it was outside the fence the two perturbed humans were no longer a threat.

The rabbit peacefully snacking on greenery after being chased from the garden.

So, as the rabbit went about its business, I scanned the garden. Nothing was sampled or disturbed this time. I must have seen it right after it got through the fence. The way the rabbit was eating greens from the lawn it was obviously hungry but it didn’t touch anything in the garden. Maybe it just didn’t like what I have growing. Who knows? My husband grabbed some wood strips and the stapler and we repaired the hole in the fence. We’ll see if the rabbit tries again.

A perfect little bunny-sized hole nibbled through the mesh fence.

Hopefully the repairs will keep the tricky little bunny out.

After the quick emergency fence repair I harvested some spinach, more arugula and all the pak choi. It had rained the night before so the greens were gritty with dirt. I gave them all my standard triple rinse then ran them through the salad spinner.

The day’s harvest

I froze a lot of the pak choi. I chopped it up, blanched it two minutes in boiling water and then plunged it into ice water. After letting it dry off a bit on some paper towels, I packed it into a quart freezer bag. I also fridge-pickled some of it in a simple brine of 1 cup of white vinegar, ½ a cup of water, 1 tbsp. of sugar, ½ tbsp. of salt and some fennel seeds. I’ve never had pickled pak choi before. I’ll give it a week or so and then see what it tastes like.

Two pints of pickled pak choi

I’m going to use most of this round of arugula for my lunches this week but I also used some in a salad today. I mixed four servings of cooked and cooled pasta with a can of rinsed kidney beans and a couple good handfuls of chopped arugula. I dressed it with 1 ½ tbsp. of oil, 1 tbsp. of lemon juice and some salt and black pepper and then sprinkled some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. It made a great light meal for a hot, humid day and all the subtle flavors worked really well together.

Mmm, pasta with fresh arugula and beans