Gloomy, overcast, a typical rainy day…and it actually rained! A couple of heavy downpours and a few gentler extended falls added up to a satisfying full inch (25mm) over a few hours. This is great timing for the second planting of summer squash, which is just starting to produce heavily, and for, well, everything else! Even the pond filled up nicely. It’s too late to make up for nearly three months of near zero rainfall, calculating that effect is best left to the quieter late fall and winter months, when the lessons of the season are reviewed and new year plans get firmed up. Right now, it’s all forward looking, week to week, harvest to harvest. Any decent rain is excellent!
Weather
Peppers…
It’s all joy with the peppers (and eggplant). Here, Gypsy sweet peppers put on size and begin to peek out. In the past, these two crops barely made it in, if at all. I planted the varieties, but for eggplant, only the very early Dusky produced satisfying yields toward the end of summer, and peppers made it in decent quantity last year because of the freakishly extended warm weather that went into October. The reason is no mystery: doing the transplanting mostly alone, I’d get to peppers and eggplant last (they’re not prime farmers’ market sellers); this year, they got a good week or more head start. So we have the fruit of extra labor (and pretty good pepper-growing weather)—straightforward and…satisfying!
The end of July
From the gangway to the upper level of the barn, the View shows the new, unusual pattern of the field as summer progresses: less veggies! Compared to barely a month ago, the difference is clear. And it’s even more striking when you walk through. What’s happening is, with this year’s more intensive planting and harvesting, larger sections are finished earlier than in previous seasons. I don’t find this pleasing: too much emptiness, where crops should abound—it’s not the main season fullness I remember (although even now, there is still more upcoming yield out there than ever before)! That’s the way of the busier market garden. And according to the plan, this year’s first organized fall cover cropping—oats, winter rye—should actually fill up the emptied sections, starting in August. I guess you’d call that positive progress, though I still take great, simple pleasure in seeing pure abundance in the field. Not logical, but there you go!
Fish in the field
A different order of fieldwork: eating up the leftovers! A couple of rainbow trout left over from yesterday had to be used, so I coated them in cornmeal, pan-fried ’em in olive oil and butter, with a sprinkling of salt and pepper, squeezed some lemon over, and took ’em out to be picked at in the field. The trout was joined by leftover roasted potatoes from last night’s dinner harvest, and fresh flat leaf parsley. Fast, no fuss (my cooking skills are so far…basic!). The photo’s kinda funny. I set the plate down on a path to get the parsley, which is growing two feet away, snapped the shot, then noticed what all was in it: a little pigweed growing on the left, some mallow on the right, and grass all around, my weed friends looking on… Rain: another intense storm overnight finally gave us just over an inch (25mm), and then gave way to this beautiful, sunshiny day. Still, that’s only about 40mm in 40 days!
Milkhouse looking out
The view out of the extended Milkhouse sliding door is not yet a great one—gotta move the big storage shed that blocks the view straight out to the field—but it’s become a common one this year. Amongst other things, the Milkhouse is a place to take refuge from extreme heat and, very occasionally, from…rain. And the extreme teasing continues. The latest is rain from INDIVIDUAL CLOUDS in an otherwise largely clear blue sky, that comes down just heavily enough to make you take shelter. A gutter hasn’t yet been installed at the front of the Milkhouse, so water streams down from the roof, which picks up more from the main barn roof, creating a deceptively abundant pool in no time. Actual rainfall for this little session: 2mm. (The tiny grey hose running across the pic is the original lifeline from the barn well to the field that in the first two and a half years was all that supplied water when the weather didn’t!)
Water work
We’ve been watering heavily (well, as heavily as our gear allows) for what seems like weeks. Rain has been teasing us, 5mm a few days ago after an impressive, all-day cloud build-up; last night, 2mm following a brilliant extended lightning show and promising bit of a shower that soon faded away. It’s terrible. Conall has been honing his newly acquired hose rigging and sprinkler positioning skills. For heavier watering, the set-up begins at the pond and continues along a 1″ pipe (a little small, but it’s what I have from Year 1, intended for the much lower capacity barn well) that runs the length of the field. Water arrives through a series of shutoff Y-valves and from the valve of the moment snakes through up to 500′ of 5/8″ garden hose. (Fluid dynamics is something I should apparently be studying, to get a grip on the water-reducing effects of our often convoluted hose, valve and quick coupler combinations.) The hose leads to sprinklers (never too efficient, and quite a waste with anything above a hint of a breeze) and soaker hoses (MUCH better, but a pain to run up and down beds and then move again). The pump can deliver only so much, so it’s a multi-day rotation of gear to get around the entire field. The golden upside: WATER to the crops!! It’s amazing how much energy half an hour of heavy rain can save…!
At least a little rain
Today had all the makings of a slow, steady, gentle soaking, but so far, a mainly misty downfall has added up to a measly 5mm. Of course, I’m not unappreciative of ANYTHING in the way of rain. And the plants are looking mighty perky. Overall, the field is heading into that final sizing up stage that leads to main season fullness (see three weeks ago). Time can move so fast. Some real rain, please!