There comes a time when a people have been camped in one place for many years that the land has grown tired and seems to only produce weeds and hoards of destructive vermin. I have been continuously gardening in the same place for close to ten years and I find that it may be time to give the earth a rest. It is scarcely summer and yet I find myself wanting to burn the whole garden to the ground in a ritual cleansing. I have a flamethrower and I am tempted to do just that, but as dry as it has been, I might set the whole yard on fire like my neighbors already have done this year.
It has been ugly hot this week. It is going to remain this way until Sunday where the temperatures should return to the mid eighties. The heat has helped to worsen the drought we have been experiencing. I have been watching the plants in the corn fields curling up and crop yields are not expected to be good for the region.
The heat helped to create a really nasty storm last Sunday. I was north by a county at work, where there was not a cloud in the sky, when it blew through Kane and DuPage Counties with winds that topped 80 MPH. At local farmer market in Bartlett, the wind picked up the tent, ripping the poles right out of the asphalt of the parking lot. Old trees fell onto houses, crushing cars and downing power lines. I regained my power after 13 hours that night but some people in Wheaton and Glen Ellyn to my east are still without power. No power and no air conditioning for four days and counting in one-hundred degree heat. Poor bastards.
As for me, I had a few limbs to drag off to the burn pit to cut up later. The wind, of course, knocked down my corn, right as the tassels should be pollinating the ears. Fortunately, the roots held and the plants up righted itself quickly and now ears are starting to fill out. Looks like all is not lost.
I have been trying to keep the garden watered. The storm produced about an inch of rain but that has been the only real precipitation that we have had in the past month. The extreme heat and cloudless days are intensifying the drought through evaporation. I have not mowed my lawn in over a month.
In June I harvested some very nice heads of cabbage as well as good sized beets and plenty of carrots. I have about thirty heads of garlic which are dry and ready to bring indoors. I have been paying close attention to watering the onions. Onions need lots of water in their later growth and I have been rewarded with dozens of nice big bulbs. The plants which did not seem to be making bulbs have already been harvested and, along with the cabbages, beets and carrots have made many gallons of June Peasant's Stew.
The garden is choking with weeds that have flourished in the heat. I need to do something about the nutgrass in particular because they are starting to produce seed heads. Today I found an article that suggests that nutgrass can be killed with molasses. Apparently, diluted molasses is a good overall tonic for the soil as it makes food for beneficial microbes which then flourish. Nutgrass stores nutrients in a nutlet several inches below the soil line. One such microbe, or the molasses itself, has the effect of either destroying or starving the nutlets so that the grass can be killed and will not return. I will try this and post the results when I get around to writing my nutgrass node.
But neither nutgrass nor downed corn is at the root of my gardening despair. It is the cucumber beetles which are bringing me, quickly this year, to my decision to let my garden lie fallow in 2013. In spite of the beneficial nematodes that I amended into the soil to devour their larva, the little yellow bastards are infesting my garden in numbers even greater than last year. I have been spraying the melons, the squash and the cucumbers once a week with a copper spray as ascribed. But the pests are relentless and already several cucumber plants and a few melons have succumbed to the wilting virus that they carry. I seem to be having less of a problem with squash bugs this year so I think that the copper spray is working.
Because the corn is tassling right now, the cucumber beetles, along with the japanese beetles, are all over the corn devouring the ear silks and eating tassel pollen. The corn ears seem very tight so hopefully this wont damage the kernels but other pests might exploit this damage to get to the kernels and spoil the ears. There are so many cucumber beetles that I fear when the corn has set they will turn to the cukes and melons and cause a total crop loss before the plants manage to set a single fruit. They are behind in growth but are flowering. I am picking the flowers in an attempt to encourage quicker growth. But it is my rule to do a minimum amount of spraying once the plants flower so I won't risk poisoning the pollinating bees. If I kill the bees, to me the whole point of home gardening is pointless and I might as well just buy from the farm stand. Looks like I will be anyways.
So that is it for now. The tomato plants are, so far, blight free and have set green fruits. That is one good thing about a drought, lower humidity inhibits fungal growth. The Okra is still very small. I probably will not be making gumbo when the corn has matured. I might, however have some eggplants soon. I anticipate harvesting onions in July, potatoes in August, and a total loss of all melons and cucumbers. I might get lucky and enjoy some summer squash before they too succumb to wilt.
I will see if molasses kills nutgrass. If it does not, I will have to resort to a nutgrass specific chemical herbicide. Either way, I believe that I am going to abandon my plans for a fall garden and perform a near-full till in the fall and broadcast a cover crop, probably clover, to let the soil rest for a year. Many crops are heavy feeders of nitrogen which can get depleted from the soil. Clover is a nitroge-fixing lequme which restores nitrogen back into the soil. A cover crop will help to prevent soil-erosion in a fallow field and will help to smother other weeds from taking root. Cover crops can be then tilled under which further adds green organic matter into the soil.
I will keep logging my gardening triumphs and woes unless I wind up in the nuthouse from work related exaustion.