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| Gardening, Rain, Soil, Traveling, and the Demands of LIfe July 7, 2008 13:35:56 It is hard to believe that we could get too much rain in a growing season but it seems like that is what has happened so far this year. At least some things have been set back by too much rain and chilly weather. I planted some sweet potatoes early in May and they all died because I think it was just too cold and wet. I planted them again and the rabbits ate them off so I gave up on those. Carrots, of which I have two nice rows seem to be stunted or at least have grown very slowly. The tomatoes have not produced a single tomatoe yet. In fact they do not even seem to be blooming very much. One good result may be that the insect pests have been set back considerably this year. Have not had much problem so far but the cabbage loopers are really starting to work during this past week. So, I was gone for 10 days at the end of June which is not a good time to be absent from your garden. Mostly because the weeds had really good growth while I was gone. Some of the broccoli got too old, my son was supposed to cut it, so I just had to cut it off so it can regrow. As soon as I got home last week it rained a whole bunch so I finally got out this morning and just ran the tiller over some of the weedy spots until it got too hot. The July sun in Illinois is pretty hot. Throw in some humidity and it is just that much worse. I do have some nice green beans and I picked the first bunch a couple of days ago. They are royalty purple pod beans. You can kind of see in the pic below the beans are a deep purple. They turn green when you cook them. I really like this variety of bean. They have a good flavor and are not bothered as much by bugs. You can also see the chicken wire I have around the beans to keep the rabbits from eating the plants. 
We also have some sweetcorn that is about ready to start picking. It is about a week behind but considering the condition of corn in general in the midwest I am very happy with this stand and how it has grown. I put a couple of wheel barrows of horse manure on this ground this year. 
Something that seems to have been really hurt by all the rain is the green pepper plants. I had several die in April after I set them out. I replanted some of them and those have just not grown very vigorously at all. I do not have any cucumbers even planted yet nor any squash. I decided to wait on those to avoid cucumber beatles and it has been too wet to even plant any for the past month. Maybe I will get out this evening after it cools off and put some seeds in. Comment on this article | |