After a pretty impressive inch and a half (3.75 cm) of overnight rain, my water table indicator puddle is back. Not usual this far into June, but there has been a lot of falling water recently. You can see the water in the tamped down route of my path to the veg field, but it also extends into the grass on both sides. A mini-Everglades. If the veggies were planted right here, it would be a problem: plants breathe through their roots, so they’d be spluttering for air, in danger of drowning! Luckily, the veg patch starts not far off, but up a gentle slope, so, pretty much high and drier. With the clouds and rain of this May extending into June, with a few days heat wave-ish break, the weather pattern of the last 20 years holds true—there is no pattern!
Year: 2026
Birds 2 – Beans 1
The first small bed of green beans was coming up fine—then I lapsed for a moment, and the beans were mercilessly attacked. So it goes in the rough-and-tumble world of the country veggie garden. I suspect birds. Can’t be sure but I’m pretty sure. I’ve seen them in action before. The ragged tops of the stems seem to point to pecking action, not the clean angled slice of creatures with teeth.
Instead of seed leaves, beans emerge with the actual bean split in two right on top of the stem, like an irresistible treat on a stick. Not sure what sort of garden raider survival strategy that represents. I usually put out anti-bird measures: inflatable scare balls or aluminum pie plates suspended on string. Or toss on some row cover—the duct tape of the garden—until a few leaves develop.
Here I didn’t act as soon as I saw the first signs of emerging beans. Also, I’m not used to hand-seeding and probably got a little too precise and seed-saving. With a seeder, plenty of seed drops, so there’s room for thinning, even by birds. Unforced human errors!
Anyhow, there are still enough plants for a decent first harvest, and a bigger bed is seeded and underway, with pie plates heading to the field. Bonus quarter point for the beans—you can see a tiny new leaf on one of the bare stems as it goes for a comeback!
Box elder regrouped
[From 15-Jun-2026] There’s definitely a kind of cheerful dark humor in the relentlessness of it all. When you settle in and observe, the calm and peaceful veggie garden is in a constant push-and-pull of competition and ways to get what they want. Everything’s hungrily chomping, from microorganisms in the soil, all the way to the deer who are hopefully getting zapped by the electric fence (it keeps them on their toes!). Weeds and crops sneak their solar panels to the front, trying to hoard light. The plants, the animals, the powdery mildew, you name it, they all just want to eat and grow, and they have no problem clearing each other out of their way. Wow! But maybe it’s not a battle royale, it’s a wondrously vast, seamless balancing act that can’t be properly described with words. Relax. Don’t overthink. Enjoy the invasive box elder, brutally cut back a couple of weeks ago, regrouped and now trying to eat the work table. Once again.
Layers of protection
Layered protection for beds of cabbage and cauliflower. First, row cover for the flea beetles, who are out in force as usual. Loosely laid on top, deer netting, that doesn’t actually work for deer (it didn’t for the deer around here) but will hopefully deter the groundhogs. The net could easily be chewed through, but it’s springy, tensile tough and very easy to get tangled in. That may be enough!