The Wetness and the Weeds

We can't complain about dryness this year. Usually, in July, we are searching the skies for relief. Now, every couple of days, there is another rain. Sometimes, it's a downpour, sometimes it gets downright torrential.  I don't want to seem ungrateful, but it has made it hard to garden. A lot of my early vegetable plantings were seriously over-watered. They responded by dying. I did get an onion and chard crop.

However, the weeds are loving it, since it has often been too wet to mow or pull them. They are growing like, well, weeds. Most of my yard is too steep for a riding mower. In those places, the weeds got away from me entirely. Usually, I use the self-propelled lawn mower there, but the weeds grew so rampant that now all that mower can do is push them over. That mower should be called Sort of Self-Propelled On Level Ground.

This is the steep hill by the garden, where Queen Anne's Lace and chicory have put down roots. Also planning to stay forever are lots of red clover and grass. I am hoping the common lilies blooming there will one day take over the slope. However, I thought that about the irises I transplanted there a few years ago. They are not seen above in the grassy upper right hand corner on this side of the fence.

The farmers were late getting their crops planted, so I didn't feel so bad to belatedly get a little patch of corn planted. With all the rain, it is growing so fast it makes me gasp. I did give it a brew made with diluted chicken manure, fish fertilizer and rain water, steeped in the sun for weeks. Corn likes that sort of thing.

It seems that even more rain has fallen north of here. The river has been up over my fishing beach for most of the summer. Last night they got five more inches upriver, which is a tad much. We have been in an almost continuous state of flash flood warnings.

The speck at the end of the bridge is Beau, to give some idea of what a fine big bridge it is. This isn't even the entire span. I took the pic from the middle. When we go down there at sundown, we have it all to ourselves.

Today, the river is noisily crashing against a tree that straddled one of the supports, limbs first. This is looking downriver. It sounds like the ocean. Lots of trees and brush float by, but very little trash . The Grand is muddy but clean.


For the time being, I am accepting that the weeds have won this season. I find it takes my mind off my defeat to sit and knit socks in the shady end of the garden. There, I admire my Primrose marigolds (Parks Inca II Hybrid). They match the daylilies along the fence.

The Juliet tomatoes are producing quantities of fruits. There are too many to eat and not enough to make Juliet Jam or can.

Every day, I yank up a big tub of weeds from the flower beds. It would be a good lesson in not planting more than I can weed,  if  I could ever learn it.