And then, mother nature throws a curve ball!

We've had a fairly dry stretch here in the mid Atlantic recently.  I've run my three rain barrels almost dry so I have been using my hoses to water.  Watering has been an every day thing given the 90 degree weather. Today had promise of some rain here.
And boy, did it ever rain here. We had lightning, strong winds and very intense rains for a good 45 minutes or little longer. The road in front of my house turned into a virtual river.  The winds were very strong for a good 15 or so minutes and it was whipping out bigger trees around.
After the rains stopped and the water subsided in my back yard, I went to inspect my plants.  I was mildly surprised that only 1 tomato plant looked much worse for the wear.  I'll have to try to nurse it back to health.  I tied all the plants off in case the rain that is being called for tonight is as bad as today's.  Just like I always say, you can't control nature.  Happy gardening everyone!

Mid Point Review

I know tomorrow is the first day of Summer officially, but if you have a garden, it's the mid-way point of the growing season.  And, it's also that time of the year when the garden needs the most attention.  On this Fathers' day, I took inventory of where my garden is and what I needed to do to continue or improve the garden.
As we are heading into the heat of the summer here in Baltimore, I decided I needed to have a back up system for watering - a hose.  I usually hand water with rain water I store in rainbarrels but inevitably, I get too busy at times and may put off the watering given the 100 degree heat we have here.  So I set up a hose and a sprinkler as shown below.

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Notice the state of the art equipment I am using.  This is a Rain King rotary sprinkler commonly found in the 60's and 70's.  But it does a great job and it was dirt cheap to buy at an antique store.
And it works!
Here is my patch of 14 Pepper plants.  All looking healthy at this time.  These represent two successive plantings.  Don't need many of them but they are easy to freeze and great tasting to bring out in the Winter.

I also have 8 Cucumber plants that are just starting to grow up the trellises I made from various items I have scrapped over the years.  I another month or so, the trellises will be a flush of green.  Just need to keep training them up and they will do the bulk of the work on their own.

Next I have about 60 bean plants in various states of growth.  I have planted them successively for the last 5 weeks which should insure a constant crop over the next couple months.  

Then finally, I have my 14 Tomato plants of various types.  The summer heat will bring with it rapid growth over the next month or so.  As you can see from the one picture, there are buds galore on some of the various early type tomatoes.

So, all in all, and compared to my neighbors and what I am hearing from various gardeners I know, my garden looks productive.  I'll have to keep an eye on it of course and do the things that will keep the momentum going, but that's all in the nature of having a garden.  Till next time, Happy and productive gardening everyone.