Well summer has finally shown up and it's hot out but the nasty heat heat that drives everyone inside won't be here till mid-July or August. I'm definitely putting down the water. My trees are getting deep watered every 2 weeks to a depth of three feet and my veggie patches are getting watered down 18 inches every 4 days. The easiest way to check your water depth is get a piece of rebar and push into the ground. All the bubblers and drip tape I've installed have kept the water bills about a hundred dollars less than last year at this time. I'm really impressed that in the heat of the summer we're watering 17 trees, 4 blueberry bushes, 3 grape vines, 1 passion fruit vine, and a 22 foot by 45 foot veggie garden for a $ 150 dollars a month. That number is totally exceptable to my wife and I and I believe I can wittle it down even further by automating the whole system. You see I've figured all the approximate times it takes to get the amount of water down that all the plants need but sometimes I forget the water is on or fall asleep in the middle of the night while it's running, not to mention all the time I spend manually turning on sprinkler valves or dragging hoses around to different emitter setups. So soon I'll begin automating the entire system. I've also had to replant my vine garden because the chickens destroyed the last one, I've had set backs in my potato patch and blueberry patch, I love melons, and I've found some cool new bugs in the garden.
I had to replant my vine garden the original chicken defenses weren't strong enough and the chickens destroyed the whole thing in 2 days. This is the new garden with 4 foot tall fencing around the plants for protection. Lets see the chickens jump that. I kept the plants real simple armenian cucumbers and luffa sponges for the whole thing.
My potato crop this year was a huge failure the basket above was all I harvested. Last year I pulled 25 pounds of taters out of the garden. I blame the failure on buying store bought potatoes and not using seed taters. The plants just never got going maybe next year. I also had a problem in the blueberry patch, I was harvesting a handful of berries everyday, when all of the sudden every bird in the neighborhood figured out there were blueberries afoot and the whole crop even the green ones were gone just like that. I still got 1 cup of tasty blueberries which is one more cup than last years harvest. Those birds are lucky I'm a permaculturist the old Aaron would have settled up with all of them for eating his blueberries, oh well maybe next year. Do you sense a theme here? It doesn't happen overnight. The first year I struggled to get the b-berries through the harsh summer and I suceeded, the second year the birds stole my harvest, So next year I'll have to defend against the birds. PATIENCE PATIENCE PATIENCE!!!!
Do you love melons? I do, they're my favorite summer treat, these are my first honeydews of the season. They're are many ways to test for ripeness, some people can tell by sight, others are thumpers, I'm a pusher and smeller. All you do is push on the belly button (side opposite from the vine) if it pushes in easily the melon is close to ripe, then smell the belly button, if you smell a sweet melon smell then it's ready for harvest. Man I love melons.
Cool bug pic!
This is an assassin bug eating a bee. Assassin bugs are beneficial insects for your garden, they eat other bugs. The only problem is they'll eat other beneficial bugs to (bees).
Finally check out this cool 5 legged grass hopper that showed up, that's right my garden is handicap friendly for all. All in all everything is going great on the farm, I'm still harvesting about 4 pounds of tomatoes a week, but I'm tired of blogging about them and the wife is tired of chopping them but hey.
BOOYAH!!!!
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