The Longest Four Days

We have been deceived. On June 21 at 6:07 ET, the Farmer's Almanac said, it was the Summer Solstice. Precisely then.

However, a glance at the Rise and Set for the Sun for north 40 degrees latitude (here) shows four days with the exact same rise and set times. I would suspect a cover-up of some sort, but the Astronomical Applications Department at the U.S. Naval Observatory seems like they would have known or have been able to Google it.

The Solstice means the Sun Stands Still, a great trick.

As a gardener in a hot area, there is such a thing as too much daylight. In winter, I cheered the Sun on every day, marveling at each precious minute of sunlight gained. Now, I think the Sun has worn out its welcome. Lack of rain recently has left the ground hard and dry. The blazing Sun is not helping there, working in cahoots with the strong south wind. When I water the plants, I am dismayed to see the water slipping down big cracks in the ground.

Of course the road dust is choking. I run into the house when I hear big farm vehicles coming this way.  Long cattle trailers, trucks pulling multiple round bale carriers and their ilk create great clouds of dirt as they speed by as if to a fire.

A singular problem I have is the chickens don't get to bed until around nine. I'm always waiting for them to roost. They are in no hurry, meandering down toward the coop and then milling about in the hen run that they were so desperate to get out of earlier.

Back to the Sun Set chart. Even though the Sun rises later now, it has been sneakily setting only  three minutes later in all this while. For ten days following the Solstice, it set only a stingy minute later. The Sun is no doubt beaming at how easily we were fooled by the calendar.

As a amateur astronomer, more darkness with mild nights would be great. Ironically, in winter, we have plenty of night, when it's too blessed cold to go out.

I believe there is actually more afternoon now. It's some trick of the light that allows extra minutes to be sneakily larded in to the afternoon, when no one is noticing. As for me, I'm having a siesta in preparation for the long drawn out end of the day and possible stargazing after eleven p.m..

The hens turned out to be more resourceful than I would have imagined. With the ground hard and dry, they turned a molehill into a dust bath. I believe they scolded me to stop squawking and enjoy the summer.

The Race is On

Between now and the Summer Solstice, June 20th, all growing plants are in fierce finish line mode. Who will win? I hate to say it, but it's usually the weeds.

Just this morning, I pulled this tub of rampant weeds from one of the flower beds. This haul was all from the six foot border seen in the photo. Turning my back for just a minute allowed them to rise up to worship the sun.

Weeds, unlike flowers and vegetables, don't mind being severely crowded. They long not for air circulation around them. Without actually having elbows, they shove other herbage aside and shoot ever upwards.

It's a good thing that I actually enjoy weeding. Years ago, I realized I could learn to love weeding or gardening would be a dreadful chore. Even though I came to understand that I could always plant more than I could keep weeded, I still am outnumbered on the weeds front.

Weeding isn't just a one time thing. I've already weeded the entire lily bed twice. Eternal vigilance is the price of gardening.

Mulch is great, too, but even that has to be replenished every couple of weeks because weeds are sprouting the moment the contents of the mower grass catcher is emptied onto the ground.

Fortunately, there are the early veggies. This delicious Early Round Dutch Cabbage and Little Sweetie Snow Peas finished in first place yesterday. Actually, it was while I was mulching around the cabbages that the weeds rose up in the peony border.

Then there are the Gaillardias. They are annual flowers but act like weeds. So many have come up this spring from last year's planting that I've had to yank many of them out.  It feels cruel.

 They are pretty but soon lounge over on other plants, plants that I've taken lots of trouble to grow from late winter, like these Bishop's Children Dahlias. A small fence attempts to hold them in check. These daylilies are Stella in Yella, from Roots and Rhizomes.

Perhaps I should have planted the Gaillardias in the middle of the grassy front yard. If anything could hold their own against invasive Bermuda grass, it's them. They would simply flop over and smother the grass. I'll try that next year.

The time for planting is past. Now is the time for racing the weeds to the Solstice.

Midsummer Blues

The same force that causes me to get into a gardening frenzy in December is at work now.  The Summer Solstice is the signal for me to rein in my wild planting excesses.

This year, however, I have been struggling for some time with dry conditions, devoting lots of energy to hauling water or dragging the hoses around.  The statistics just in reveal that this is the second driest April through June on record.  Also, we rarely get our first hundred degree days until late July, and we've had so many now I've lost count.  How it could be so hot and dry and still be humid is one of Nature's nasty secrets.

It's like when you feel kind of crummy and the doctor says you have pneumonia, you feel immediately much worse.

After that, I understood that the reason the Remote Garden has not grown properly is drought. I gave the plants water, fish fertilizer, water, cow manure tea and water.  I can't carry enough water up there to make a difference.  These tomatoes simply do not have enough leaf cover to protect the tomatoes from sun scald.  When corn tassels at two feet tall, it's the same thing; it's not going to make it. The word is unthrifty.

Many trees, like these honey locusts, have been forced to lay off half of their leaves.  My first ripe cucumber looked delicious but when I tasted it, it was so bitter that hours later my lips and tongue were still smarting.
My daughter Lissa raised some like that one year and she said even the chickens wouldn't eat them, and they have no lips.

The only sensible thing for me to do is to stop watering the lost causes and concentrate on things that have a chance of survival.  This is the first time I've ever seen a peony bush wilt.  They did perk up with some water. Veggies and perennials first is my plan.  Some of the annual flowers have already shriveled up in the hot wind.

Even the Grand River doesn't look so grand, and is dropping daily.  I was sitting here at Fishing Beach one evening, listening to some fish tumbling rocks nearby when a young deer appeared on the sandbar.  I held very still and it couldn't seem to figure me out for some time.  It finally trotted along the sand upriver.  My side of the river has no sandbars, just rock. It's on the outer bend of the river, so I must hang out with the rip-rap. The river can now be waded across, so I may see how far I can walk on the sandy side.  At least I can go around the bend, if I haven't already.

Meanwhile, I got an order of wool sock yarns and am knitting away while listening to a biography of Birdseye, inventor of frozen foods.  Also for entertainment, I'm watching Shackleton and reading Black Ice, set in Antarctica.  It all helps.