in past years there have always been a few
around gnawing on the beans or the grape
leaves.

i'm not seeing any this year. maybe due
to the early heat or repeated late frosts.

still interesting how things can change
from season to season.

in other news...

went out to pull garlic the other day.
managed to get all the garlic up that was
in lighter soil (several hundred heads), but
the garlic in the clay is going to have to
wait until we get some rain. i managed to
get three clumps out by jumping up into the
air to get the shovel down a bit, but it took
repeated hops to do it (singing hippity-hoppity
each time). ended up just taking the bulbules
off the top of the rest and left it until after
we get some rain. i need my feet and ankles
and that was a bit much.

as for results, i can't compare between the
sandy loam and the clay garlic yet until i get
that out of the ground. however, i can report
results for sandy loam as being excellent. the
biggest factors being full sun, spacing and
starting clove/bulbule size. water did not
seem to have as much of a difference (as the
smaller cloves with less spacing had the
same amount of water as the larger cloves
with more space), but i'm sure it would have
made a difference in results had i not watered
at all. the same small cloves and bulbules
were planted along a front edge that i did
not water at all. they did grow, but the
heads were about 1/3 the size of the irrigated
patch.

next season i'll have a better supply of
larger starting cloves so i can run yet another
spacing comparison patch and also do a more
careful comparison between the garlic which
has the tops taken off and those that don't.
this year i could swear i took the tops off
the larger cloves of garlic (with more space
too) and it seems they came back and had tops
again. next year i'll be doubly sure to do
that and check them again so i have a better
comparison. oh well it was fun and the garlic
that i did get from that sandy loam came out
of the ground just by pulling (didn't have to
dig it up much at all). now that's cream-puff
gardening around here to have that... i'm
so much more used to the rock hard clay.

will be pulling the larger beets soon. they
have grown so quickly i didn't even know they
were ready until i looked yesterday and saw
the shoulders of the beets. i suspect these
will be the best beets yet.

beans blooming. peapod peas don't know how
they'll do with this heat, but they are flowering
a ton right now, very pretty purple/pink/white
flowers. keeping everything watered every three
or four days. the tomatoes are putting on a lot
more blooms. watering i make sure to drench the
whole plant to give it a bit of cooling. absolutely
no disease or bug troubles with them this year (so
far) they are dry within a few minutes. okra is not
doing much, but that is my own fault for planting it
in rock hard soil and where it doesn't get a ton of
water either.

cucumbers on cages, doing good.

volunteer squash plants in the onions, i think
we'll leave some of them and one likely to take
over a pathway near the tomatoes.

has anyone here done companion planting of squash
and onions (planting the squash late enough that the
onions are already largely grown)? it looks to be
workable because of the different habits of the plants
but if anyone has done this i'm all ears.

we are surrounded by blooming corn this year. i'm
sure all the farmers are hoping for rain soon, it's in
the forecast as chances of showers, but like yesterday
the storms went all around us again, i don't believe
it until i see it hitting the ground...


songbird