Dance Of The Blessed Spirits

When standing water in the roadside ditches turns the grass to a rotten brown, you know it has been raining too much!

I have read that it is good for plants to be stressed. This was “stressed” in the sense that plants can make their own defenses to deal with insects and weeds if they are not coated with chemicals. Our plants are most definitely “stressed.” However, I’m not sure it’s good for plants to be stressed in the way that 19 inches of rain in the last half of May stresses plants. We have a berm along the creek which was put in by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s. This is what keeps the creek within its banks.  The berm does not cover our front field and the front field flooded at least once in the last week. The berm does cover the part which we farm. This garden is in a low area and had not been planted, but is was laid out and ready to plant.

We had some damage in our gardens. Having planted on ridges this year definitely helped. The fact that Robert spent about 3 days digging ditches and reopening ones that had clogged helped even more. The gardens drained very well, but we are still in the “bottoms” and all water flows to the lowest point. The water was moving so rapidly exiting the garden that it tossed the fabric in the valleys up onto the ridges. We were pleased to discover today once we put the fabric back into the valley that some of the tomato plants were still there! Others were washed out by the roots. The melons and cucumbers have already been planted twice because the first planting fried in the hot May sun. As you will recall, it was dry the first 14 days of May so we were irrigating on a daily basis. I had to laugh yesterday when I got the power bill for that irrigation!

It will be another week before we know for sure how much damage has been done. The weatherman says we have a dry week ahead with sunshine–for that we are most grateful. The beans and peas look good. We see some summer squash starting to come up. We cannot use any vegetables in the low areas. We have had better years. We’ll do our best.

Look back Monday for the CSA Box contents. I am not going to try and predict what will be in it. That beautiful red lettuce which some of you got was hard hit with the rain. And the chois are starting to bolt. This is why they look as they do–not as pretty. However, they still taste good! Wash, chop, eat.

As I sat down to type this Blog, I heard Dance Of The Blessed Spirits by Luigi Boccherini and Nora Shulman, Concerto For Flute, Harp & Orchestra in C Major. The music is so relaxing and peaceful. It is a reminder of all things beautiful.