Plants Gone Wild

My friends & I foraged wild ramps in May

Here we are in the heat of summer--sort of.  This last week was the first one in which it didn't rain nearly every single day.

I haven't done a lick of painting at all because it has been far too humid for exterior painting.  If I think about it too much, I start to panic in the likelihood that at some point during winter break, I'm going to be on the front porch freezing my butt off while painting the front door.  I'm grateful that we have an adequate water supply where others in the country are suffering through drought... but I'd settle for a two-week run of 75 degree days with low humidity.

The garden, though, has been LOVING this weather!


Oddly enough, this is the first year out of the past four that I'm going to have tomatoes!  I've lost the rest of them to blossom end rot, but the raised beds drain really well and I haven't had one with it so far!  It has affected the Black Lightning zucchini due to a calcium deficiency, and I'll fix that for next year by adding some lime and crushed oyster shells.  Lime makes calcium more available to the plant, and crushed oyster shells will add calcium to the soil over the long run.  As always, I've been fighting slugs by applying diatomaceous earth after each rainfall.  They've managed to decimate a stand of green beans, but the other patch is just fine.  My strawberries didn't do much this year, but we went strawberry picking and managed to come home with 18 quarts of berries.  Freezer jam has been made.  The rest of them have been crushed and mixed with a tiny bit of sugar to be spooned on top of waffles, scones, pancakes, and biscuits all winter.

There are just about four more weeks left before school starts, and I'm no where near ready for summer to end.