Summer Solstice 2009

Summer Arriveth In Earnest, and Officially...

Welcome to the longest day/shortest night of the year. The moon is new-- not visible for a few days. And it's Father's Day-- Happy parenthood to all you dads out there!

Well, all these signs add up to a propitious time to do some serious "yardwork"-- and the kind I like best is that which feeds me.
All that, and my first round of plantings had run their life cycle... so, time to cull and replace.

Here's what the beginning of yesterday looked like from the West end of the garden:

And at the end of the day?

(Summer Solstice Sunflowers!)

(East end-- where the lettuce bolted from! ha!)

Kinda looks empty, but in a happier, more spacious way. The deadening squash (low left)

and the bolting lettuce

were the largest green-materials contributors to the compost pile:

The new-made space was promptly filled with seed-- many more okra seeds, more yellow crookneck and some winter buttercup squash, and two varieties of cucumbers (having had sad luck with them in the container-- just too darned hot, and shallow dirt).

I haven't had much luck this year with my Brandywine heirloom tomatoes from seed, but we'll keep trying. Instead of direct-seeding them in the garden, I've started the seeds in small clay pots. More manageable to water and control the amount of sun-bake the pots get. I'll transplant them when the seedlings are ready.

And, of course, not everything had to go.The existing tomato plants are definite keepers-- the hopeful seedlings will be ready just about the time these here

give way to the Great Sleep.

Some things, too, were started later than the green beans and squash, due to their more hot-weathered needs. This Crimson Sweet heirloom, for example

has yet to be tasted-- but soon, my friends, very soon!!!

And while we're on the melons (what a good Father's day image that be...) I'll be letting you know this evening about the taste of this hybrid cantaloupe that sprung from compost scraps:

The thing has run amuck, fruiting like wild now (semi-tame though it be). I pulled one off the vine a few days ago-- too small, really, but it weren't growing anymore, and seems now ripe enough to give taste.

Not much else to add, folks. Just the waiting for the new seeds to sprout, and to continue the harvesting of what's offered. Next year's garden promises to be much larger, and with a bit of good luck there will be an orchard being established in them thar hills as well...
Ahh-- but that's all fodder for another post, my friends.;D

I'll close with two things:
One, again Happy Father's day to all you dads-- current and expecting ones! Hope your wife doesn't overdo the sirloin on the grill (assuming you let her near the thing! ha!).

And the second? I should say this one is directed only to the gentler sex, but who am I to deny any who care to peek?--- wanna see my banana pepper?!?

HA!!!

Slainte, folks...

Cygnus