No rain.

No rain in sight according to the forecast. My little weather station is saying rain, but unless something develops "out of the clear blue" (which is how it became an expression for doing just that), i don't see it. We have 50% humidity which will help keep things from just going crisp but it makes for a really sticky quality in the air.
Its about 76 so far at just about 11:30 am. It was 82 in the house somehow.  I think it stayed in the high 60's or more likely in the mid 70's last night.  It was 74 when i woke up at 10 am.

Not a whole lot to report on about the garden since i haven't been out there in the last 2 days.  I sent my mom home with some summer squash.  My oldest picked and enjoyed her cucumber- said it wasn't bitter at all.  The Pruden's Purple have set fruit...  I hope the Kholrabi will hurry up.  I want to let the volunteer tomatoes to have that space.

I also wish the potatoes would be ready already.  I can barely make it through the row between them and the tomatoes.

With all the weeds this year, the garden feels very crowded,  i feel uncomfortable just looking at it.

Rain needed.

Earlier this morning, it looked like we'd be getting a nice dose of rain.  As the morning went on the radar showed that the rain is likely to miss us completely by slanting south as it moves east.  So we get  the clouds but no rain.

Lawns are drying out and getting crispy underfoot.  We have watered. Hubby gave the garden an hour of water Saturday night,  the lawn got 45 minutes.


Maybe we will get some thunderstorms. 

Grapes

Hubby helped me string the wires for the grapes-  well 2 of the lines anyway.  I may hold off on the last two strands until next year since they won't be needed until then.

Things are starting to look like they have a purpose though.

One thing i messed up on though- and this is a perfect example of my flakiness---  the two extra stakes i had in the ground at each side of the row....   i forgot i had those there so the two Edelweiss would be able to have 2 cordon arms like the rest of them are supposed to.  So maybe later this fall i'll put the stakes back and wire them again.

I also have to decide if i want my cordons as low as i have the Marechal Foch

or as high as i have the Frontenac (or is that Reliance?).

I'll be able to decide this Spring by just cutting the trunk and keeping 2 nodes for canes to grow. (If i'm using the right words to say what i'm thinking.)


I have a Minature White cucumber that is mostly ready to pick. I'll let my oldest daughter have it. Cukes are her favorite garden produce.

Weeds!

Just...stuff...

We got pouting rain yesterday evening.  Probably about an inch. We didn't get more tthan one rumble of thunder but the rain was coming down like buckets.  I think we also got some sprinkles overnight,  bu the rain did the garden good.
I'm looking to the weeds as some sort of living mulch at this point!

I may take some small bowl and a paint brush with roundup and see if i can paint away the weeds.  I also need to dust the grapes for Japanese beetles.  They are eating my leaves like mad.  Even the prune plum is getting defoliated.  I had planned to spray the apple tree last night but i took the kids on a visit to my parents and we used the pool and stayed until dark, so no spraying got done.  Hopefully tonight...

I'm going to start Kefiring again. I just put in an order of kefir grains to Marilyn Kefirlady. I killed mine last fall through neglect.  They were making more kefir than i could keep up with, i had a backlog and i was reluctant to store more and more only to dump it out.  Also my mom has been buying kefir from the store, so i'm going to get her started on the real stuff.   The store bought kefir only has about half the strains of beneficial bacteria as homemade. Plus you can chose what milk you want to use- whole or skim and there's no sugar or unnecessary flavorings added.

Photo borrowed from: http://joannasteven.blogspot.com/2010/11/fermentation-series-4-milk-kefir.html

UPDATE:  Grapes dusted, apple tree sprayed.

I picked a load of broccoli today and two 49r summer squash.  Broccoli for dinner it is!

Squashes are about 8 inches, not sure why they look so different, they are from the same plant.

Green beans,  second sowing. The first sowing is about to flower

Sweet Chelsea tomatoes

Cucumbers and weedy grass *sigh*

Squashes before picking

Broccoli and cabbages

Japanese beetles are doing in my grape leaves, this is Marechal Foch

Elderberry flower buds.

 This is what the Japanese beetles are doing to my Stanley prune plum.  I have dusted both this tree and all the grapes.

Autumn Olive is doing well.

Petunias doing well- and a small bee in flight.

Purple smoke bush starting to fuzz.

Mostly full garden shot.

Weather

Another hot day starting up.  Its only 9am and its 77 degrees out there.  We have a good chance of getting some rain along with thunder.  Its pretty cloudy out so its possible i won't heat up much more than around 85.
So here i am, looking forward to rain, and a possible light show.  I do like it when the temps are high like this, especially overnight-- a least for the garden. We are lucky to have air conditioning units in every room but the bathrooms, or else i'd hate this heat.
Yesterday it got to 100.  Some areas reached 102 close by.  I may have said this before, but we don't usually see temps like that until August and then it happens only every three years or so.
I don't think i took many notes on temperatures last year, it might not be a bad idea to start doing that this year.

Well,  while i have been writing this, we have gone up another half a degree.

Update-  10:02 am and we are now at 81

2:00pm  91 degrees. Good thing its been cloudy or i bet we'd be well over 95 or even into the 100's today.  The forecast broadcast says it will be gooling of quite nicely in the next few days.


Its now after 3pm and still  in the low 90's.  I got the chance to sneak out and i found the cucumbers and broccoli seemed to be wilting in the heat.  So i had to water.  I think a half hour will do it.  We've only watered a few times this year so far. It won't be terrible to do it today even though its not the best time of day to do it.

Even the Jerusalem artichokes were looking peckish.

Weather

Almost 82*F right now and its only 10:30 am.

The weeds have really taken over but there is not a whole lot i can do about it. I can't just go outside and start messing around with things.  The temps are another factor. Humidity is rising too...

I'm going to fire up the air conditioners in a few minutes.

Other parts of the country are seeing triple digit temps,  i don't know how they manage!


Edit to add-

88.5*F at noon

I has a broccoli

Yesterday i picked 4 smallish heads of broccoli. They were delicious. I didn't even cook them, we all ate them right after the heads were washed.

There are a few more heads forming out there, it will be another week before they are ready.  Not much beats fresh broccoli!  I'm shocked that i have not been woodchucked yet this year.  Simply amazed.

I got some free time yesterday and i took some random pictures.  My camera wasn't wanting to focus right so some are a bit blurry...

Kossack kholrabi is starting to bulb up

Lots of weeds, but lots of plants.   (potatoes, broccoli, cabbage)

Corn rows

Volunteer tomatillo beginning to flower

Sweet Chelsea tomato beginning to fruit

49r summer squash just starting to make squashes

Edelweiss grapes

Marechal Foch grapes, getting bigger every day

I think this is Frontenac

Elderberry flower buds getting bigger

Blueberry bed

Berries beginning to get ripe

From the other side

Apples are getting bigger faster than i would have guessed

jerusalem artichokes...  they'll get ready to flower soon

Houseplants on vacation

Potted fig doing nicely

I decided to do a little video walkthrough of the yard.  It was so nice out yesterday evening.

Weather.

Almost 95 degrees out there.  A strong line of thunderstorms are coming through Vermont right now.  I expect them to arrive here by 6pm.  Looks like they may carry heavy rain- i hope so, we really need rain.

Growing things

Marechal Foch a week ago

Marechal Foch today

Frontenac last week (just blooming)

Frontenac just setting frui

York elderberry last week

York elderberry today

Apples. Looking good, a little russetting but better than bugs

The leftmost Edelweiss, putting on some berries.

Morning Glory

Some petunias to match the house

Its growing!  Beans are newly up as well

Weeds!  And a few plants.

I can SEE the corn.....mostly.

I forgot how tall potatoes get. What was i thinking?

I even have some volunteer tomatillos in there

Broccoli, yay!

Cucumber trellis up.

So many weeds, so little time outside.  But so much is growing. I'll have to look back a bit to see how it compares to last year. It will take me a few years to get a feel for the garden events like first ripe tomato, first cucumber, first bloom of squash....

Today i saw Japanese beetles and cabbage butterflies.  I'll have to break out the BT soon.

I think it might be time to pull some new potatoes in about a week.  If i remember what side i put the red ones on!


It hit 90  degrees today, supposed to stay warm tonight.  Great growing weather!