July Gardening

July 2

There’s an old joke about the north country. We have only two seasons: Winter and the Fourth of July. So far, this year is following that schema. Mother Nature hit the ‘heat’ button last Sunday, and the garden is happy.

There’s still no sign of the parsnips, but the carrots are up, big time. The potatoes and black beans came up literally overnight. They weren’t there yesterday and today they are. There’s just enough time to try replanting the parsnips with fresh seed.

I planted an entire three year old pack of bunching onions in a flat, and got exactly one plant. I put in another half packet two weeks ago, with no results. I’ll put in everything we have this weekend, and then look for some fresh seed.

I also transplanted the squash, cukes and okra that I started, and they’re reasonably happy. Unfortunately we’re getting yellow leaves again. And the radishes are not bulbing up, for the second year in a row.

The four week old tray of globe basil has finally put out true leaves. The dill I planted at the same time looks exactly like it did two weeks ago.

The soil here looks good, and it holds water wonderfully, but it’s starting to seem like it’s not actually very fertile. Watering from the waterfoul’s poopy kiddie pools seems to help some, and I’ll be mulching with bird bedding as soon as things are big enough to mulch. We can’t actually manage much of a compost pile. The birds eat pretty much anything but lignin. I was going to compost the bedding from the coop and stalls, but now I think it will go straight onto the garden.

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