"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Saturday, July 13, 2013

The End Is Near



Or so they say.

I looked at our week ahead weather forecast and they're actually offering us a chance to dry out starting Monday. 

Seriously? 

I'm not sure I can believe it.

And I'm not sure the summer garden can recover.  The cuc's, squash and beans have all bellied up.  The tomatoes are starting to ripen but we're throwing away as many as we're saving to BER.  Can't be helped.  Just too much rain.

The only thing that seems to be doing well is my arch nemesis, the sweet peppers.  Year after year I've tried to find the proper growing conditions to get a harvest and who knew that it would take 40 days of gray skies and 20 inches of rain to do it?

You heard me right.  We're going on 6 weeks of rain.  Just over 18 inches and that's not counting anything more we get this weekend.

Astonishing.

All in all I'm quite grateful to live in a country so diverse that if one part of the country is hit with drought or floods that wreck a harvest, there is usually another area that can pick up the slack. 

So the summer garden may or may not be a bust.  I'm hoping to head out there today to evaluate the situation a bit more closely. 

I do know that my crop of Bermuda grass and mosquito's has never been better.  Hence I'll be attired in high boots, long pants and a can of OFF.  (If there's no post tomorrow it's because the skeeters all glommed onto me and sucked me dry.  Death by mosquito...Oh Joy!)

Times like this, I wonder why I even bother to garden.  Gardening is seriously hard work, not for the faint of heart.  We're like gamblers spinning the roulette wheel, round and round we go pulling weeds, battling bugs, sweating and breaking our backs.  Sometimes we win.  Most times we loose.

I must be addicted to the challenge of the thing.  The thrill of a harvest.  What were the words from that show?  The Wide World of Sports? Remember that?

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat... the human drama of athletic competition...

I suppose gardening could be considered an athletic competition.  It sure is one of the most challenging (and rewarding) things I've done in my life.

3 comments:

  1. We have had a lot of rain in Ohio and I have a bumper crop of beans but my tomatoes are lagging.

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  2. Tami, you all have gotten a lot more rain than we have. Sure hope you can salvage something before the skeeters carry you off! :)

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  3. Wow! So that's where all the rain has been! Hope you can manage a harvest anyway.

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