September Summer

When I planted the garden in July, two months later than the preferred time because of our very wet, cold weather, I had a vague hope of having something ripen before frost. With nights consistently in the 40s since then, it seemed hopeless. Ah, my mother would have said, "Ye of little faith." The nights may still be cold, but the days are plenty warm. This week the daytime temperatures have all been in the high 90's, until today when it hit 100.

My very-late garden is producing... beans, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and an unending supply of peas. The corn is almost ripe. I have no doubt we'd have cucumbers and squash if I'd planted them. Instead, we have many varieties of melons which will need another month of warmth to ripen. Who knows why I planted melons instead of squash.

Birds planted many sunflower seeds so the garden is abloom, much to the delight of bumblebees.



Thanks to no rain since the day it quit raining long ago, my life revolves around watering. One day I water the greenhouse and outdoor potted plants. Another day I water the garden, raised beds (boxes, manure spreader, horse-drawn wagon), berries and a few favored flower bushes. The arboretum takes several days even though I'm only watering the newest plants. I try to get it done in the morning, before the sun becomes too blistering. I don't do heat well.

When I first started watering the arboretum this summer, it was a challenge to find the young trees because of the tall weeds. It was a challenge even to find some of the older ones. So I mowed. It took days of mowing carefully around the many trees and bushes. Alas, sometimes not carefully enough. I didn't destroy any plants but I seriously mangled quite a few of my precious planting markers that I was so proud of. I would not know I was upon one until I heard the very loud crack of metal blades hitting metal stake. The marker itself proved hopelessly fragile when encountering the lawn tractor and shot forth in numerous pieces great distances. I spent a lot of time crawling around in the weeds looking for missing pieces of plant markers.

In desperation, I pulled out the markers that were not yet mangled and threw them into the middle of their bush or tree, out of harm's way. And asked Johnny to make me stumps to put my markers in so they'd at least have a fighting chance against the lawn mower. Johnny did. And today I put them up, along with what labels I'd managed to save and tape back together.

The stumps help raise the markers to where they can be seen above the weeds. From a distance, the markers look pretty good. Up close, the damage is more obvious.






Some are worse than others. But, hey, all you need is a hint to know this is a Giant Sequoia, right?







A good many markers are just fine, thanks to being either hidden under their tree or safely thrown inside their bush. Now some of those are proudly visible on their stumps.




This Redwood marker survived but is dwarfed by its fast growing tree. I need twenty more stumps. Johnny has been notified.