Happy sidereal Lughnasadh, for those who attune to the earth and solar cycles! The Sun passed 15°00′ of Leo at 10:57 a.m. EDT, the precise midpoint between the Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox. Since those are (misleadingly and inaccurately) called “first day of Summer” and “first day of Fall” on mundane calendars, that makes today the middle of Summer–now we’re on the downslope. Local sunset today occurs before 8:00 p.m. for the first time since May 13, and the Sun is about the same height in the sky at midday as it was on May 6. (You can get your own local times for Sun and Moon movements at the Naval Oceanography Portal.)
In honor of “first fruits,” I had a tart made of blackberries from my yard for breakfast, and my supper included locally grown red cabbage, locally grown red peppers, and little garlic bulbs from my garden.
My Tarot reading for the coming octave was very…interesting. I did ritual at the crack of dawn. I had this little vase of flowers, all from my gardens, on the altar.
I’ve been somewhat depressed about my gardens this week, though, fighting off a guilty sense of #gardenfail. I did all that work at the end of May getting the garden in, and then neglected it for the next two months. After everything was well up and growing, I didn’t even water, and I didn’t weed or thin when I should have. Granted, the intense heat and dry weather (mild drought) would have affected the garden no matter what I did. But things would be doing better now if I’d been more attentive.
I thought my tomatoes might have been infected by something like late blight, but I’m not sure–it could be heat and drought stress. The poor cherry tomato is almost defoliated. It keeps on doggedly flowering and forming new fruit, though, and the existing cherry tomatoes are ripening. The big tomatoes don’t seem to be forming more new fruit or growing much, but they’re not deteriorating, either, and the tomatoes on them are just starting to ripen. The pumpkins and squash, since being mulched, are growing new foliage and blossoming but not setting fruit. The potato vines are dying off and I know they’ve made potatoes because I can feel them under the soil. But you’re supposed to wait a couple of weeks to dig them. I decided to pull or dig out all the garlic and onions whose tops had entirely died, leaving only a few onions with a little green that I hope will develop further. I was surprised to find that all the garlic had grown a little; I had a pile of teeny little garlic bulbs. A few of them even formed cloves. I also have a pile of tiny little onions. They’re all tasty and I’ll get several meals out of them, but they’d have done so much better if I’d watered them! The peppers never set a single fruit. I guess I’ll see what the carrots do, they’re pretty happy, and I have the fluffiest, healthiest marigolds you ever saw. I sure can grow those!
We were already under water conservation rules here in Pepperell, and I could only water on even-numbered days. After I did all that weeding, I determined that I would water every day I could, whether it rained or not, and I was doing so. (We’ve missed almost all the thunderstorms that have hit the state for the past two months. We might get a little rain, but the big boomers and their downpours go way north and way south.) I also decided to try replanting the garlic. I even bought widgets at the hardware store to successfully repair my leaky garden hoses, and new sprayer attachments.
So, I planted the garlic yesterday, because it was an even-numbered day, and I was going to go out and water in the late afternoon. *Ring* goes the phone. I pick it up, and it’s a recorded message: “This is the Pepperell Reverse-911 automated alert system…” Oh-oh… The Town of Pepperell had just instituted an emergency, mandatory, total ban on all outside water use. I looked online and immediately found out why: one of our wells tested positive for e-coli and had been closed down for inspections. On top of the drought situation, we’re now out one well. Eep.
I have no idea how long the well will be offline and the ban in effect, but it’s the coup de grâce for my poor vegetable garden if we’re talking, say, weeks. 🙁 The weather forecast is warm, clear and dry into the foreseeable future. Unless a tropical storm makes it this far, I’m SOOL.
Sigh.
I really saw evidence of how dry it’s been when I walked down to collect some dandelion greens for the bunny tonight. It’s been more than two weeks since I mowed the lawns, and the plants and grass have barely grown back at all. I’m not into monoculture or chemical-laden, water-hogging turf; grass is just one of the many flora that collectively constitute my “lawns.” But you can see what everything looks like in the photo of the flowers, above–dry grass and a few sprigs, that’s about it.
I’ve gotten the biggest haul of blackberries ever this season, and they’re still coming, although nearing the end of their run. But there, again: I missed a lot of berries, by not picking every day or just not seeing them. One thing I wanted to do in May was stake up the blackberry and black raspberry canes both for their benefit and to make them easier to harvest. I never got to it. Hopefully, I will next year! The black raspberries are squashing the hybrid day lilies, and if I train the blackberries on supports, maybe I won’t get poison ivy (my poison ivy rash is in full itchy bloom now, *grump*).
But along this theme: here is one of the most encouraging and exciting news articles I’ve seen for a while:
Farming surges in state with new crop of devotees
Now that is really cool. 🙂