I gotta say, I am so glad we got those transplants in, yesterday! I’m also glad we’re just getting rain today, and not the severe storms that other parts of our province is getting. Not that far south, either. The motion sensor on the garage security camera gets triggered by lightning. While checking the files, I could track the storm, over the span of a couple of hours, as it swept past us. None of the late night lightning was quite as dramatic is this one.

It was at about 6am when I woke to hear the rain coming down, hard. Of course I was concerned about our new transplants, and checked on them as soon as I could do my morning rounds.

Happily, none of the summer squash appeared damaged. In fact, a couple that were still looking droopy yesterday evening were looking tall and strong. Without a mulch to protect them, though, we’re going to have to add more soil to the mounds before adding the straw.

Even the littlest melon transplants at the squash tunnel were looking quite strong.

In checking these, I realized I made a goof in posting about them, yesterday. I’d said the two types of gourds were planted opposite each other at the far end of the tunnel. I completely forgot that, at the last moment, I changed my mind. Both types of gourds are on one side, with both types of winter squash, opposite them.

It was the corn I was most concerned about, and not just because of the downpour. I’m happy to say that none of them are looking at all drooping or stressed from root disruption. Some did look a bit tipsy from the pounding rain, though! We’ll see how they look, after a few days.

I’m thinking of leaving the little flags for a while. They flutter quite a bit, and might help dissuade deer from approaching.

These Crespo squash were planted a little while ago, and I’m just including them because I’m so happy at how strong looking they are. Even the little one has gotten noticeably bigger and stronger. A lot of things are. The bush beans are looking so fantastic, so quickly! The peas are getting tall enough that we’ll have to start training them up their trellises soon. The carrot sprouts are getting big enough that we can be more vigorous in weeding around them, and not be as concerned about accidentally pulling them up. The two spinach beds we were able to cover over first are looking downright succulent. The third one looks like it had been nibbled on more than I thought, but even so, it’s doing pretty darn good, too.

We don’t seem to have any purple kale coming up; they were pretty much the first things we planted outdoors, and should have come up long ago. The purple kohlrabi planted between the onions and shallots also doesn’t seem to be coming up, either. The onions are doing all right, though I have no idea how big they should be by now. The garlic, meanwhile, is growing like gangbusters.

We’d seen strawberry spinach seedlings earlier, but it seems only a few are still growing, though with those, just a couple of plants would be sufficient. It’s hard to tell them from the weed seedlings, though. The poppies are in a similar situation. I see a few seedlings that might be poppies, but it’s hard to tell with the weeds. That’s one down side of buying garden soil by the dump truck load. It may be a premium mix, but it’s also from a giant pile outdoors, so of course, it came with weeds. At least most of it is a local weed I well recognize, having pulled many of them from my mother’s garden when I was a child! :-D

The lettuces are a mixed bag. Some seem to finally be doing all right, while others seem to have just died off. We need to do a successive sowing of those, anyhow. The seed packets, which were in a Ziploc bag, ended up upside down and some of them spilled, so future sowing is going to be a mix of seeds! Which I don’t mind at all. :-) The beets meanwhile, are doing quite well, in all the beds. Even with the cats walking across them, and sometimes lying on them! The tomatoes are also looking really good, including the itty bitty transplants. Even the potatoes are coming up in all of the grow bags, now, and looking very healthy.

After doing my morning rounds, the girls and I made our trip to the city. We even used my mother’s car, partly to give it a good run on the highway, but also because it has air conditioning that works. ;-) I was very happy for those new tires when we found ourselves driving through some very solid rain. It was definitely coming down harder, the further south we went.

For now, we have a break from the rain, but we will likely get more again, before the system finally passes. I think everyone around here is breathing a sigh of relief. We needed this rain so much! And our

The Re-Farmer