Rain!

It finally rained! We received 3/10ths of an inch last night, along with plenty of thunder.  The wise weather forecasters are calling for hail this afternoon, and I really hope they miss that forecast!  It hailed a bit a few days ago when I was out in the greenhouses and I had to make a decision.  Do I run for the house, or do I wait it out here?  *ponder ponder* I looked up at the 4mm rigid poly covering of the greenhouses and thought 'Well, if it starts hailing heavily, I think I'd rather be under a tin roof' so, I made a run for it. And it stopped hailing. Go figure eh?  My farmers gut is telling me that this summer may be shaping up to be a rather wicked one weather wise.  We shall see...

Today, the 5th of June is our 7th consecutive frost free day!  What a struggle it's been this year to get things out of the ground and growing.  Case in point, check out this red norland potato!      

These potatoes are much tougher than you think.  I could have sworn they were toast after the last frost, because the leaves were all limp and black, but they've grown through it.  I used my own seed for the Irish Cobblers and that may have been a mistake, since the emergence has been very poor.  However, the plants that are growing have great vigor and are ready to get down to the business of growing spuds.

This is an 8 ball zuchinni.  It seems like it'll be so long before they start to fruit, but I know that as soon as the fruit starts to come on the different varieties of zuchinni's I'll be praying for winter to come.  The only thing cuter than a seedling zuchinni is a seedling hemp nettle.  Hemp nettle is one of the most prevalent weeds in the Garden Patch, with it's pair of oval shaped cotyledons and pair of furry little true leaves, it's so cute! But it's a menace.   Kind of like a gopher or a squirrel. 

Looking at the above picture of the Garden Patch, it looks so small and insignificant.  But then I remind myself - that's only half :-)  For those who are curious about the greenery growing to the left of the picture, that is Thompson barley.  It's coming into the 3rd leaf right now and just about ready to be sprayed.  I have an agreement with the farm that the sprayer won't come any closer than 50 feet from the Garden Patch, so you don't have to worry about any chemical residue.  To control the weeds we will be silaging the barley next to the Garden Patch and feeding it to the cattle in the winter.  

I've given the name the Garden patch, to this area because we have three other gardens in the yard.  It was confusing when I said I was going out to the garden, because the garden is the house garden.  I couldn't even call it the south garden, because that's the other garden to the south of the garage.  So this one, south of the south garden, is the Garden Patch. Convoluted? Yes.  Chaos? Not anymore! 

Have you ever seen the movie Tremors?  The first moment I saw this eggplant flower bud my first thought was Graboide!!!  Then I got excited over the fact that there was a bud on my eggplant, which means that eggplants are on their way! *Excited!!!* 

This is Nick.  Keeping the area around the greenhouses ( he's not allowed into the greenhouses) mouse free.   He quite enjoys his job, since there aren't any mice, and he gets to laze around and sleep in the shade all day.  I have to admit, it's rather distracting when you hear snoring and you look out the door to see the dog curled up with the cat, snoooooring away.  Wouldn't life be grand if we could take naps like that? 

I'll leave you with a picture of Dicentra spectabilis commonly known as Bleeding Heart.  They're so pretty, but it makes you wonder - what caused their heart to break?