Mother Nature Continues to be a Mutha

Apricot – Blenheim

Okay.  It’s difficult for me and many like me to thin vegetation in the garden.  Things like onions are much easier as the baby onions are harvested to use as green onions.  Items like apricots are something I leave completely to Mother Nature.  The outcome seems to be the same whether it’s me or nature doing the work.  The strong survive.  The only fruit on the nectarine dropped recently.  It was a sad piece of fruit that was destined to wither.

This evening I was clipping the parsley, thyme, and chives when my pruning shears demonstrated exactly how sharp they really are.  Slash!  The drip line was clipped clean through.  Luckily Farmer MacGregor has extra line in the shed and the repairs were made.  While cleaning up the clippings (along with the black widows and earwigs) I noticed that Mother Nature was again having her way in the garden.  A few more apricots will not reach maturity.  They rested on the gravel almost as helpless as a young mourning dove.

The trees are due for another trimming/fertilizing session.  No threat of sunscald yet with the wonderfully cool weather that is lulling most of us into a very false sense of security.  July is on the way.

Garden Note:

• Radishes planted as beneficials amongst the pumpkins.
• Parsley and green onions planted as beneficials to the tomatoes.
• Coneflowers, nasturtiums, zinnias, and some other flower seeds I picked up at the Rite Aid were planted in the front yard flower beds.
• The 1st tomato set on a plant mislabeled as Al Kuffa.  This is a mystery variety.  It looks to be a tall, lanky variety.  Maybe as time goes on I’ll be able to determine what variety it is.

Tomato – Variety unknown

Family Tree

Grape – Red Flame

Farmer MacGregor is the right man for the job…the job of thinning grapes.  He’s been studying the best way to prune the vine and the bunches in order to produce big, beautiful grapes with an eye toward future production.  I don’t know a thing about it and I’m glad he is taking control of the vineyard.  Does one grapevine constitute a vineyard?  Thinning is difficult for me.  I know I’m not alone.  Onions are easy because they can be thinned and used as you go along.  The fruit trees are a different beast.  The fruit trees were thick with fruit earlier this spring.  All that fruit is a promise of jam, pie, cobblers, fruit leather, and just plain fruit.  Many encouraged me to thin the fruit out to enable stronger fruit.  I didn’t.  Mother Nature and her wind loosened the weaklings and threw them to the ground.  Thanks Ma.

With days full of garden chores and a nighttime addiction to ancestry.com, I have had little time to make entries in my blogging garden journal.  There is no 12 step program for this addiction and I don’t care.  Like gardening, history is especially interesting.  My branches extend back well beyond the Mayflower.  Farmer MacGregor’s branches are a challenge to me though.  One of those branches is especially difficult because so many records were destroyed during the wars in Europe.  Finding information, and some of that information is only a sliver, can help create a character in a complicated story.  This type of history gives me a greater appreciation to those before me.  Thank goodness they didn’t thin me from the tree.

 

Garden Note:

• Planted Sugar Baby Watermelon 05/22/11.
• Thinned grapes 05/21/11.
• Harvested garlic 05/16/11.
• Planted red peppers 05/22/11.
• Thinned & repotted spider plants 05/25/11.
• Fertilized vegetables 05/24/11.
• Amended two middle beds 05/22/11.  Added sand and Gardner & Bloom.
• Sulfate of Ammonia applied to front lawn 05/20/11.