What's Going on in Donnie's Garden?
Columnist Donnie Johnston updates us on the state of his garden and the fox family in the culvert down the road.
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
The garden is looking good. Last week’s heavy rains missed me (I still ended up with three inches) and there was very little erosion.
I got my tomatoes, peppers and other plants set out at a perfect time and the rain helped establish their roots.
They are starting to assume that dark green color and really take off. Now all we need are hot days and warm nights, which we are not supposed to get for at least another week.
I’m eating new onions and I’ve had fresh peas from the garden. The potatoes are looking good and I hope to be able to grovel a few small ones next week. I had a few Colorado potato beetles but I got the vines sprayed a few days before the rains came. I have not seen any potato bugs since.
I have the best looking crop of beets I have had in some years. My first seeds did not germinate, but the second planting has done well. I should be making pickled beets by late June.
The cabbage, which I saved from the groundhogs with wire cages, is heading and I should have blooms on my yellow squash in about 10 days. If you recall, not one of my first seeds came up, but I found a partial pack from last year and planted them. Almost every one of those germinated and I transplanted about 50 yellow squash seedlings. Might have a lot of squash.
I did not plant zucchini this year. I decided to give the neighbors a break.
My corn (peaches and cream) is about eight inches high and it, like my watermelons and cantaloupes, are waiting for those hot days and warm nights.
One early row of green beans is about 10 days (and some heat) away from blooming while the rest of my crop (for canning) is a couple of weeks behind.
Man, did I get a stand of okra, the best I can remember. I think every seed came up. I’ve thinned the plants once, but it is still too thick. One more thinning ought to do it.
My four black walnut trees are loaded. No guarantee they will all make, but there are numerous clusters of three and four mini nuts. Last year, as you may recall, I had practically no walnuts, as these trees often take year about in production. Looking good for this fall.
A friend in Richmond said he watched a squirrel eating those small nuts, now less than the size of a marble. I have never seen that happen.
My buddy is also starting to pick black raspberries and mulberries. Kind of early for both.
That hard freeze in early April did a number on my cherry blooms, which are usually capable of withstanding cold. I may have enough for one cobbler, but that’s about it.
Still no word on how the peach crop in Rappahannock County made out with the 20-degree temperatures. Rappahannock, Madison, Greene and Albemarle counties were hit hard by those flooding rains last week. Twenty-four hours after the fact, torrents of water were gushing out of the hollows in the Shenandoah National Park and Rt. 211 was blocked for a time in a dozen or more places.
A friend near Syria (in Madison County) measured almost 10 inches of rain and doppler estimates showed 12 inches in isolated spots. VDOT will be busy for a while repairing roads and culverts.
The first cutting of hay is ready, but the weather, as usual, isn’t cooperating (rain forecast for today and tomorrow).
Orchard grass is heading out nicely and the first cutting of alfalfa should already have been made. If farmers could only control the weather. Either not enough rain or too much.
Finally, the little foxes – or at least this year’s litter - are back in the culvert up the road. Several generations have raised in this abandoned culvert for more than a decade.
In fact, this year two vixens tried to use the shelter. I happened to be on hand when the second female brought her litter to the culvert and watched as the first litter ran them off. No interaction there.
Bring on some hot weather! I’m tired of wearing jeans in the morning and shorts in the afternoon. I want some of those 95-degree days!
Gimme hot weather every time!
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