June was incredibly dry. I watered my garden every single week, and while that technically should have provided enough moisture, there’s nothing like real rain to keep things happy. I always feel a little like my watering is like keeping the plants on life support–they survive but don’t really thrive the way they would with rain. June was dry enough to officially qualify as “abnormally dry,” which is one step away from being a “moderate drought.”
In addition to the lack of rain, we had poor air quality because of the Canadian wildfire smoke. There were a few days toward the beginning of June when we were in the “orange” zone. I spent one “orange” zone day working outdoors in my garden and thought it was ok until the next day when my throat was scratchy. At the end of June we had worse air. We were in the “red” zone and almost in the “purple” zone. The wildfire smoke was bad enough to affect visibility, plus it was hot and humid. I tried not to go out in it.
A couple rounds of rain passed us by, including one that resulted in absolutely magnificent cloud formations. Then on the second-to-last day of the month we had several rounds of serious storms that knocked out power across the city (including our house for several hours) and dumped 2″ of rain in only a few hours. Our basement started to flood. There was tree damage across the city. It was awful. We got another 1″-2″ of rain over the following few days, and still we’re categorized as “abnormally dry.”
In between all of that, there’s been plenty going on in my garden. I continue to be plagued by critters. One noon I looked out the back door and saw a stocky, brown form dart across the back yard. It was a woodchuck and it headed toward my raspberries. I screamed from the surprise of it. I haven’t seen a woodchuck around here in many, many years, though there’s a hole in the neighbor’s yard that I’ve been suspicious of for a while. Additionally, we have at least one possum who stops by in broad daylight to snack on cat food. We’ve also had a lot of raccoon activity all over the back yard–pulling up my potted plants, digging though all my garden beds, upturning plants, and scavenging for any stray cat food crunchie. I’d be happy if they all just went away.
In my garden, I’ve had a long parade of purple coneflower blooms. They’re not full of frills, but they are very happy, easygoing flowers. They’re right next to my favorite grey-headed coneflowers, which are delicate and sunny. The two mixed together make me really smile. Other blooms have included a mass of lilies whose perfume is intoxicating. They’re on the far side of the house where I don’t see them every day, so it’s always their scent that announces that their spectacular blooms have arrived. Additionally, there was a wonderful mixture of other blooms. Look through the photos below to see them.
At the beginning of the month, I still hadn’t planted my sweet potatoes, even though it was time. The problem was that the raised bed where I wanted to put them was full of garlic that was close to mature but not quite. An additional complication was that I had dramatically increasing numbers of tree of heaven shoots coming up in that raised bed, betraying the fact that the tree had a fully grown root system in the bed. Any break in any root meant a new tree would shoot up. Unfortunately, harvesting sweet potatoes involves breaking a lot of roots. If I did nothing, pretty soon I’d have a raised bed full of these horribly invasive, nasty, growing a-mile-a-minute trees.
I decided I needed to do everything I could to reduce the amount of roots, so I figured there was no way around digging through the bed to locate and rip out tree of heaven roots. I thought it would be a really rough job, but it was worse than that. I dug through every inch of that bed on my hands and knees, feeling for tree roots, following them through the bed, and ripping them out. It took several hours, and it was brutal work. Hopefully I was successful in slowing the tree of heaven down.
I’d hoped to spare the garlic planted in the bed so it could grow for a few more weeks, but in the end there were so many roots to remove that I couldn’t save the garlic. I harvested it just a little earlier than I’d intended, but it still looked ok. I had a second patch of garlic in my other vegetable bed that I was able to wait a few weeks to harvest. It had grown better anyway, and looked pretty good as I pulled it out of the ground. Its absence leaves space for the tomatoes and squashes to grow.
A June highlight for me was that it was the start of berry season. First my red raspberries fruited. I don’t know of anywhere around here where I can get them, and I love them, so having my own personal patch makes me happy. Unfortunately, the birds quickly moved in and started eating them, so I covered them in bird net and strung some Mylar “flash tape” that flashes red and silver in the breeze to scare the birds. With red raspberries being such a precious commodity, I wasn’t willing to share them with the birds. Less than two weeks later, I had to pull the bird net off so I could get better access to the plants after the Japanese beetles moved in. Sigh. Still, I got a nice harvest.
Toward the end of June, the blueberries were in season. I love to eat them and I don’t mind picking them, so I always pick a whole lot and freeze most of them for later. Last year, I needed to find a new place to pick because the place I’d gone for years had closed. I tried a couple local farms last year and one new one this year before deciding that I just need to switch to Decker’s, which is about 45 minutes north of Evansville. They have a huge field and the berries are delicious. I went there three times so far and my freezer is stuffed.
Overall, it was a pretty good, though dry, June!
Squirrels and Tomatoes 