Back to the garden

Sunday was a perfect day for gardening. It was cool, cloudy, and windy enough to keep the bugs away. I weeded the pumpkin patch and thinned and weeded the corn. That was enough for one day. I felt confident that when I got the beans thinned, I’d be caught up.

The two corn rows on the right have been thinned and weeded; the two rows on the left have not.

I have noticed more killdeer around the yard this year. They made so much noise, I wondered if they had babies somewhere. Well, as soon as got to the garden, I saw them. Two little chicks, just as cute as a bug’s ear. I got my camera and stood for a long time waiting for the parent to get close enough to the chicks so they would all be in focus. That does not seem to be the parental strategy. Every time I stepped forward, the parent moved away from the chicks. I finally got this picture of the family.

Killdeer adult and two chicks

And here is one of the chicks.

Isn't this killdeer chick about the cutest thing you've ever seen?

The killdeer moved off, and I started on the beans. Three rows were under one piece of row cover, and one row was with the peas. As soon as I lifted the row cover on the last bean row, I realized I needed to weed the peas. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to trellis them while I was at it.

As I worked, I heard a few distant rumbles of thunder. The sky grew dark in the west. I dared to hope that we might get some rain. The cloud moved south, and I figured we’d been missed again. I was 4 feet from the end of the pea/bean rows when a downpour came out of nowhere. I took all the tools to the shed. I knew it wouldn’t rain for long, but it was lunch time, so I went in.

Sure enough, 5 minutes later, it was all over. Terry and I were both soaked. We changed clothes and headed back out after lunch. It got hot in a hurry with the sun out. I finished the weeding/thinning, trellised the peas and put the row cover back up.

Alas, for everything that gets crossed off the list, two more things get added. I need to thin the cabbage that we planted from seed and pull the weeds out of the two rows of cabbages and Brussels sprout. The peppers need weeding. The beets and carrots will need weeding soon, but they are still really little. It’s hard to tell them from the weeds at this point. The conclusion is that I will never get caught up.

I took a mirror to see what was in the robin nest under the deck. Three blue eggs. Right now I can see the bird on the nest panting in the heat.

Robin nest with three eggs

Other robin families are much further along. These chicks follow the parent around all day long begging. The parent generally ignores them.

Two robin fledglings following their parent

Terry has put three coats of paint on the sign posts.

Painting the sign posts

 I finally got up the courage to go look at my restoration area. Lots of penstemon has survived the wet winter and spring.

Penstemon in the restoration area

Sedges are also doing well.

Sedge

I was surprised to see so much timothy because there wasn’t any in that area last year, and there isn’t much of it in the rest of the field. It must tolerate wet soils better than brome grass. In any case, all is not lost.

Timothy