Wet, and Looks Like Rain (and It Is Sprinkling)

Waterlogged Japanese peony 'Hanakisoi'

A gardener farther to my north has said she is madly searching for those plans for the ark.  I have offered to clean my junk drawers in an attempt to assist in their location.  I'm pretty sure I must have borrowed them sometime this spring.

It is late.  And, it is cool.  And a lot of vegetable gardens are not planted around here.  Food prices are going up.  Salad stuff is starting in the potager and I'm going to have a very nice strawberry crop this year.  The family garden is another story.

'Honeoye' Strawberries

Blackberries are looking good, too!  (Now if the neighbors can run between the raindrops and side that garage!)

In between raindrops we did get it plowed.  Yesterday, on the only sunny day for a week, I managed to till a third of it twice and plant two bags of potatoes (German Butterball and All Blue), two rows of Early Sunglow sweet corn, a row of sugar snap peas, 100 onions, some green beans, mustard and Swiss chard.  I already had raked over a small 4' by 4' corner and planted leaf lettuce, which is up.  This is very late, though.  The soil there is a bit heavier than the sand here in my garden, and so if it rains, there is a necessary time delay between planting.

When I was a young girl, my father would say we need to make hay while the sun shines.  Not so with hayliage, though, which I am seeing cut off from hay fields, I'm thinking to go right into the feed troughs of waiting cows.  There is no hay to be had and the cows that were not shipped to processors because farmers could not afford to feed them, are hungry.  I heard it somewhere, just this week, the cattle herd is the the smallest numbers since 1952.  Our appetite for meat had increased since then.

Typically in the central sands of Wisconsin, I see a huge number of fields row after row filled with potatoes, not so this year, just three 80-acre fields out on a corner where the state high bends north of my parents.  And, surprisingly, because not a lot stops these sand farmers with tractors with big bouncy wheels that almost turn the tractors into hover craft (A car recently drove under one driven by a friend of mine, the car's roof not so good, but the driver while shaken and stirred, walked away-- she said she just didn't see the tractor) and with "walk-around" irrigation that looks like something from a alien mechanized farm world.  Some of these farmers have unplanted fields.

So my dad has his cows out on pasture, and they are wet, wooly beasts slogging through mud making their way to the barn where my son and his grandpa take turns milking them twice a day.   Of course, my dad would like to make some hay, but the sun is not shining.

I would dare say it has rained nearly everyday since the middle of May.  And, the ground was frozen in spots until a week before that.

Smokebush 'Nordine' dies to the ground after surviving a number of years.  No "smoke" this year.  At least the foliage is a beautiful color.

Deutzia, which really shouldn't be able to grow here.

So, garden chores today will not be invasive to the soil, I do not relish becoming a mud puppy.  I will probably spread mulch (where I can reach without walking in my beds) and do some light weeding.  I may try to pot up some containers, but only if my container mix is relatively dry. 

Good news, the color of the neighbor's new siding could have been a lot worse (it's sort of a subdued mossy green).

So there's your farm report and garden report for central Wisconsin.

Wonderful Ideas and Take Aways from the Vegetable and Fruit Gardens at the Chicago Botanical Gardens

The Chicago Botanical Gardens are obviously testing the best way to stake tomatoes. This plot is demonstrating three different methods: no stake, square caging (I think using pea fence) and tying to staked wires. The varieties in this plot are all heirloom varieties.


This 6" by 6" slant cut and routered cedar posting with eye hooks and wires is an elegant trellising system for growing grapes. We have not yet put up the trellising for the 'Reliance' grapes in the family berry and fruits area. I might have to copy this idea.


Cabbages grown in beautifully compost enriched soils at the CBG. My cabbage look almost this good. We are two weeks behind the CBG veggie plot, but our soil looks no where near this nice.



The family garden has been difficult this year simply because of the weather and mechanical difficulties with the Mantis tiller. We are seeing lots of greens from the garden so far. We have allowed the 'Honeoye' strawberries to put out the fruit, although we probably should have picked off the flower buds as they formed. The picking of strawberries into tiny buckets has been too much fun for my two-year old twin nephews. They already have the eat two pick one method down pat!


Three Sisters planting method: hilled corn interplanted with beans and squash. This is an idea I am also using in the family garden. The legume I chose was edible soybeans, edamame. I soaked them for a half an hour. I have since read this is a no-no. The germination was not was I had hoped. Hopefully we will have enough to get a taste and decide whether we would like to perfect our growing methods.

I loved these plots. Obviously, the gardeners who work and volunteer here do, too. Their tender care shows.

My Beets, So Far, and the Potager

Burpee's Golden Beets

In addition to the family garden, I have every spare inch in my own yard planted with fruits and berries and salad fixings. My one big space splurge is the short row of potatoes, they need some space.



















Honeysuckle


Lettuce 'Butterhead'


Strawberries 'Honeoye' with a garlic scape in foreground


Edamame, finally coming up. Edible soybeans are a lot slower to germinate than I would think.


Makeshift fencing around four blueberry bushes in the potager, 'Yukon Gold' potatoes, carrots 'Little Fingers' and leaf lettuce
Soil to right has been replanted with some rutabagas and a second planting of radishes.






'William Baffin' rose showing sawfly damage