June 2012 Gardening and Homesteading

[blue gecko]

Originally Posted by Mousehound

OMG! Let me send you some rain. We have more than enough. Our whole area is lush greenery.

I accept!

[blue gecko]

10 pints of B&B, 20 pints of Dills (actually, to be honest some of those dills were in half gallons and quarts and one of the B&B's was in a quart) But they're done! We've got 5 gallons of plum wine that we'll be bottling in a couple of days.

[oldasrocks]

BG, We're dry up here too. 4 water hydrants running 24/7. Luckily we have a good well. Knock on wood. Our willow trees are turning yellow and bamboo is crying. I run drip hose at night and sprinklers in the day. So far the gardens are good.

SarahH told me to do a rain dance so I've been dancing around naked with a feather in my hair to no avail.

[blue gecko]

I can hardly imagine that raindance OAR

[blue gecko]

107 degrees in the shade this evening...Its a blast furnace out there. Leaves are dropping form the trees like it was fall! We bought Hay for the goats today and more straw for mulching. The two main topics at the feedstore were the "plague" of grasshoppers we're having and people getting ready to sell their livestock. There's nothing growing in the hayfields or pastures. For most folks the grasshoppers number on the level of insane. We've seen some of the hordes and its like walking through an ocean of those creatures with waves of them jumping in front of you. We don't have it so bad because we've started spreading semispore when we first noticed the increase in numbers. The forecast is grim and grimmer. So sad.

[dreamseeer]

My garden is dying.

This spring I put in an awesome garden. I put up a purchased raised bed and I made another very long raised bed out of concrete blocks.

I have planted:

Painted Mt Corn
Red and Green Bells
Okra
Tomaotes
Potatoes
two kinds of summer squash
9 different variaties of beans...both bush and pole

On the tomatoes I have:
Better Boys
Cherokee Purples and Chocolates
Mortgage Lifter
Brandywines

The heat out here is just brutal.........with lots of high winds and very low humidity. I am in the desert southwest but don't let that fools you. Until right now the area I live in is actually an argicultural area near Albuquerque, NM

There is just NO moisture and NO rain.

Everything is just dehyrating and dying up and crumbling in my hand like ashes.

The tomatoes have that curley leaf virus.

The bells are just shriveling up.

Everything made flowers but the flowers all fell off....nothing is setting.

I have lots of string beans and the the flowers just stopped and fell off.
Some of the beans are starting to look very pale while others are still green.
Some that are pole won't "run" on the trellis.......due to the heat of the trellis.

The Painted Mt. corn was just beautiful...........and over the last two days
the leave are dehyrating.................this all occurs no matter how much water I throw on them.

The garden just looks like it is getting french fried.

We are topping off in triple digits every day now for weeks. The wind is constant and the humidity is almost nothing. The sky every day is cloudless with blazing hot sun that BURNS your skin.

It is hotter out here now than it has been since I came out here in 2007.

I have found dead sparrows in the garden.......blaming the cat but now after what I saw today.......it HAS to be the heat.

Today on the bird bath......I saw a little sparrow just sitting there on the bird bath dropped over. He tried to drink water but couldn't. I could see him just heavying like trying to get breath and then slightly flutter his wings. He never did drink and when he fly away he almost couldn't fly and almost ended up in the kitchen window glass.

Our world is not very natural anymore and what ever is happening this summer is a "food killer" as well as an animal killer.

I am not posting this to seek advice as much as to just let you know how things are going out my way.

It is very disheartening to see one's garden just be destroyed by the environment/atmosphere/weather..........especially since it cost me more than $300 dollars to get this garden going at this new place with putting in raised beds and all.

So very sad.

AND.............from what I am hearing and reading and talking to others in my area..............this kind of devastation is not just in my area but seems to be all around in one form or another.

What is doing ok is the okra,,,,,,,,,,,the potatoes which I have planted in tubs with straw and the squash. I do have some honey bees but they are going just to the squash.

[MaxTheKnife]

Mulch, mulch, mulch. That's all that has saved our garden this summer so far. We're using wheat straw and its working very well. Every time the bermuda grass comes up through the hay we just mulch again. Our raised beds are staying moist all through these long, hot days and the plants are flourishing. We have high hopes that we will come out on the back side of summer with lots of canned veggies and whatnot. We water every morning without fail. Sometimes on these long hot days we water in the evening as well. But lately we have experienced a loss in water pressure because the townies are watering their damn grass trying to keep it green. I swear, that is so stupid it makes my butt want to take a dip of snuff! Watering grass when you can't be assured of a drink of water from your kitchen faucet!!! How insane is that???

We're going to water the garden in a few and then spread semaspore again to deal with the grasshoppers. So far so good.

[blue gecko]

Today we mulched and watered. We've begun mulching garden areas outside the vegie garden and hope we can nurse those plants through this drought. Its pretty amazing what 6 inches of mulch can do to conserve water. Straw is pretty inexpensive and it does a great job. We'll get some wheat sprouts from it eventually but that makes good green manure. The garden looks amazingly well considering the weather. Today we were the hotspot in the state with 109. Leaves are dropping everywhere and it looks like late September. Its pretty scary and there's no end in sight.

[Mousehound]

I think in hot areas there will need to be a change in gardening. Plan on gardening in Spring and Fall, leaving summer only for crops like Okra, or whatever can take the heat. Maybe only do short crops. Things like beans and corn take too long. Change over to cherry tomatoes in pots that you can protect, instead of the bigger ones that take too long to form. I think in NM, not even shade cloth would help very much, but a bit. Could you set up clothes lines that you could clip shade cloth to when needed? Mulching is great, but beware of other animals and insects seeking water and shelter there too. I honestly don't think that raised beds are a good idea in an arid climate because they dry out too fast.

---------- Post added at 12:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:41 PM ----------

Originally Posted by oldasrocks

SarahH told me to do a rain dance so I've been dancing around naked with a feather in my hair to no avail.

That's the wrong kind of dance. Window washing and hanging laundry outside works every time for me.

[Mousehound]

Here is a link for gardening in an arid climate:
http://www.ehow.com/info_10071480_ga...d-climate.html

[Feather]

My little "garden" is doing great and growing like crazy. The little purple flowers are so sweet looking and Misty will be so happy when it harvested. It sure looks like a bumber crop of cat nip here.

[flowerchild]

We have some little green tomatoes already. I am really happy since I got the garden in late because of the weather. In only three weeks this has to be a record. It is going to be breaking records here next week. Upper 90's and high humidity. Yuck.