Friday, July 11, 2008

Three days of Rain.

Our spring this year was unusually dry. Those scattered spring showers that are always responsible for zapping our modem...somehow missed us this year. The lack of rain gave my garden a very slow and difficult start, even with 5 rain barrels to help water it. The garden just looked parched, many plants with terrible sun scald. My flowerbeds have all been on the verge of blooming, just waiting for that drink of water to open them up.

This week we finally got the rain that we so desperately needed. Three days of constant drizzling rain, enough to really soak the ground, re-fill our rain barrels and turn everything a brilliant shade of green.

It's always amazing to see the plants grow after a good rain, they literally double in size overnight. These zucchini in my second garden, were barely hanging on earlier this week. They had turned brown and dry and were only about 8" tall. Then the rain came, and just like that they have exploded with grown, beautiful blooms and even a few baby zucchinis.


This mammoth sunflower, has grown at least 2 feet in the last three days. It is now in full bloom, with new flower heads appearing daily. The width of it has almost doubled since this picture was taken. Branching out new clusters of flower heads.



In the past our growing season has always peaked around the second week of July. That is the average date that are harvesting the most, the time when the flowers/gardens look their best. This year it seems that the slow start that we experienced has extended the peak a bit. The day lilies and cone flowers have just begun to start opening. We are still harveting kale, chard, lettuce and snow peas. My tomatoes are fat, but green. We have already plucked a few to be fried up. Everything else is still a week or two off. i'm just starting to see blossoms on the beans and the pods on the garden peas are starting to swell.

So regardless of our slow start, we are catching up rapidly and thriving. In a way, it feels as if our summer has really just begun.


No comments: