Summer Gardening

Well, I've certainly been MIA on this blog.  Definitely not so on A Garden Carried in the Pocket where I have posts scheduled into October.  I've been gardening and reading like a mad woman.

Since June has been so hot, my gardening has been for as long as it take for the sweat to begin burning my eyes, then breaks to read and cool down, then back to the garden.

 Late afternoon.

For a first year garden in an area with weeds of all descriptions (monster weeds), it is still doing well.  I hated when the broccoli and spinach finished, but squash, potatoes, onions, eggplants, and tomatoes continue to prosper.  

And the flowers, mostly perennials are holding well.  Given the old adage (the first year, they sleep; the second year, the creep; the third year they leap), things are going quite well.  It takes a couple of years for gardens to begin reaching their stride, so on that score, I'm content.

The major difficulties:  trying to keep it organic (and still survive the weeds, stinkbugs, grasshoppers, etc.) and the heat and humidity of a Louisiana summer.  We've lost 2 dogwoods, but of  the other trees we planted in the spring, sixteen are doing well.  If we can keep them going through July and August, I will be delighted.  And in the fall, we will plant more.

So....after working and sweating for nearly a week in temps up to 100 degrees and high humidity, the last few days have been a gift from the gods!  Cooler temperatures and low humidity and a fairly consistent breeze.  Refreshing, gratifying, invigorating.

I have been here since June 25, mostly by myself, but Fee has come down several times to spend the night.    

Wildlife:

--Tiny, single bird egg in big pot of geraniums and purple verbena.  Twice, when watering, I'd startled a bird from the flowers.  Last night, we discovered the egg, just laid on top of the soil, no nest.

--Baby bunny hopped out of the asparagus the other day when I was watering.  Tiny, fragile, trembling thing.  The mother has evidently made herself at home under the cabin.

--An armadillo has dug up the front flower beds in its voracious search for bugs.  Uprooted all of the pansies first, but they were ready to go anyway.  When they uprooted my dianthus, however, I had to transplant them to the back garden which is fenced.  I'm hoping for the best.  

--Yesterday, I communed with a HUGE raccoon on the walking path after Fee bushhogged around the field.

--Rescued a salamander that had fallen in the rain barrel.

--Fee has seen coyotes when on the tractor, but I have not.  Can hear them at night, though.

--Tree frogs are so loud at night, it is simply amazing--a raucous symphoy.  Must be thousands of them!

--Fee showed me a Mississippi Kite that was circling overhead. Aside from their subdued elegance, they love cicadas, grasshoppers, and hopefully, stinkbugs.