What’s been going on!

Thankfully June is here.  Not for the heat or the first tomatoes, even though that is a great incentive, but that May is over.  May is always the most frantic of months and depending on the weather, the crush can be spread out over a longer period of time or compacted as it was this year.

April fools us into a sense of control, crops are growing much better than their laggardly pace of late March and while the weeds are coming up too it seems an easy chore to knock them back.  The weather is not too hot so irrigation is not too pressing even if the rains are thin.  Planting goes apace and is only disturbed by too much rain.  There is more and more to harvest each week but it is never an overwhelming task.

Then comes May and Bam! all those crops we planted in March are ready to harvest and with warmer temperatures can’t wait.  Warmer temperatures means they need more water, which means more weeds and more plant growth so we need to tie up tomatoes more often and trellis flowers and mow and plant more and, and, and…

In about a week we will be able to slide into summer mode.  Blueberries will be done, all of the spring greens will essentially be overheated and finished, the massive onion crop will be drying in the greenhouse and other than a few succession plantings of flowers all of the summer crops are in the ground and rolling along.  There will be nearly an acre less to irrigate.  Harvest melts into steady pace of a daily cutting of flowers, two mornings a week of tomatoes and a few hours each on Wed. and Friday gathering in the remaining vegetables.  The increasingly hot afternoons will be spent in the shade either productively or not.  As much as I don’t like the heat of summer, the arrival of June is a welcome change.

Picture of the Week

More signs of June, Campanula and Delphinium

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