Like for so many others this year, it has been a real challenge to keep things alive and growing in the garden. With our furthest beds, even having enough hoses to be able to reach the furthest beds, the corn and sunflower blocks were the hardest to keep watered, until we started using the sprinkler.

The corn is nowhere near as tall as they would have been, if we weren’t in drought conditions, but they have really grown a lot in a very short time, and are starting to develop their tassels. Because of how long the area of corn and sunflowers is, the sprinkler we have can’t cover it all. To be able to water it all, we set it up in the middle of one of the sunflower blocks, set it to “full”, and it can water most of the blocks. After a while, we move it to the end and set it to spray just on one side, and we get the rest of it. The corn block in the middle tends to get water from both settings, and it really shows. The corn in the photo in that middle block.

The sunflowers are also not anywhere near as tall or robust as they would be. Especially the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. They and the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers, pictured above, are basically the same size. Only the ones that got started indoors and transplanted are slightly taller. All of them have very thin stems, still. As you can see in the photo, however, they are starting to grow their flowers! I don’t expect them to reach full size, but I do hope we at least get some of the Black Dye sunflowers reach maturity.

We planted sunflowers, and chose the location for them, for a number of reasons. One of those reasons, for both the corn and the sunflowers, was to have a privacy screen. Unfortunately, this year’s drought has prevented that particular goal from happening.

If all goes to plan, however, we will be planting shrubs that will do that particular job, on a permanent basis!

The Re-Farmer