Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rain Magic

It's not just H2O. It's better than water from the well, better than water from the faucet and better than water from the rain barrel. Rain. It has a magical effect on the garden. You can have perfect weather and the appropriate amount of hose watering and you still won't see the growth that you do after a couple of days of thunderstorms. It has been a rainy week, and the garden is loving it. Here we've an explosion of purple near the teepee, but at the base of the teepee, still not much excitement in beanland.
Plenty of excitement in greenland. Despite a big bowel of cuttings being taken just about every night, the greens are very happy. The peonies in the back are happy too, they haven't opened just yet. I've tied them up this year to try and prevent flop but they are so big, I'm not sure how much that will do.
Oops, i just realized I forgot to recover greenland. It's 9pm and the bambis will be around soon. I need to hurry up, get this posted and get them protected!
In containerland, there has been an explosion of growth. These three tomatoes all have buds that I am letting them keep now. I've even been shaking them a bit to promote fertilization. They clearly like something in this location. We've seen 6 bricks of growth since these tomatoes were planted on May 10.
Cherokee Purple is in the same kind of container on the patio, and this plant has started throwing double blossoms. They are cool but supposedly make really ugly tomatoes so I hope that particular novelty stops soon. I've been checking this plant every few days and it is like a different plant every time I see it. I think the only thing that seems to be growing faster right now is the bellflowers. They are going to need some thinning. What used to be about a foot wide exploded in the last week into a four foot wide, two foot high thing that threatens to eat an eggplant!


I have most of the maple propellers cleaned out of the circle bed and we enjoyed a bunch of chive blossoms in our salads today. The peas have finally started to grow and the peppers are very dark and healthy looking. In the wall-o water, Chocolate Stripe has tripled in size and has started to blossom. I'm very excited about this. It was a tiny plant when it went out and not a high scorer on my health scale. It's definitely turned around. Rain magic!

Long work day today. I only puttered for about thirty minutes when I got home. I planted out six corn seedlings and eight sunflower seedlings from an experiment. The roots on the corn grew crazy fast. Something to keep in mind if I try corn again. Then there was a bit of weeding and inspection before more rain started. They say this is the wettest spring we've had on record. As long as the rain stays away for at least part of the weekend, I welcome it. It's magical.

6 comments:

Heather said...

We've also had a lot of rain. As much as the lack of sun gets me down, everything is so GREEN around here. That's really unheard of in our semi-arid climate! I know that the mosquitos are around the corner, but I can't help but do a happy dance for the green grass, luscious trees and flowering perennials! Yay rain!

Daphne said...

Last year we had rain, but this year it just pretends. It has been pretending to rain for three days now. Lots of drizzle, but no real rain. We so need a good soaking. I've been watering, but it just isn't the same.

Stacy said...

A few years ago we had a spring like that Daphne. Faux rain is the worst. The lack of sun slows things down, and mildew really likes day after day of tiny drizzles.

Jezibels said...

Well it looks like we may get a little more rain this morning and will clear up! I did some weeding in the garden while it was easy, and low and behold there is not much weeding to do! ahhhhhhhh

Stacy said...

I'm jealous! I am way way way way behind on the weeding. I have weeds reaching my knees in some places! I thought today was supposed to be sunny and eighty. It's cold out~

Beegirl said...

Yea for rain!! The weeds are another story...