State of the Garden Report, mid-May

This should be remembered as the month when it rained all over North Texas--and the garden stayed dry.  Like a cartoon umbrella considerately sheltered the one spot.  Gardens to the north got rain; gardens to the west got rain; and then it skipped neatly over mine and drenched the gardens to the south.  Not that far south, either--on Saturday I went jogging and saw puddles in driveways less than two miles away.

Aside from what didn't happen this week, what did happen?  Well for one, the onion tops fell over.  The book says I'm supposed to 'withhold water' to let the onions cure.  Which would be easy, except I put them in the middle of the garden and I really need to water the rest of the stuff.  I think I'll harvest half of them just in case they start to rot. 

A lot of the potatoes are dying and I wonder if it's my highly alkaline soil that's the culprit.  Usually potatoes go to seed before they die back, but this is a new variety for me and maybe they're simply ready to go underground.  Just for an experiment, I'll try digging one up and see.  But not this weekend--I'm too tired.

Tired from what? you say accusingly.  Doesn't sound like you did much of anything.  Except complain about the rain.  Answer: I didn't.  I spend the whole weekend picking beans and searching for missing personal documents for a certain son who is overseas.  But the beans will need picking every single day for a while.


I harvested squash!













Incidentally, I recorded this observation: there is war among the vegetable kingdom.











The Delicata squash is trying to climb on the bean vines. Who should be the winner? 

(Actually that's a no-brainer for me--I absolutely love Delicatta squash.  So it can climb all it wants to.  Why should it want to, I dunno.