Welcome to the Jungle

Well, it has been a dry summer here, but the Lord has allowed the garden to do relatively well anyway as you can see from the following pictures.

a sea of squash

The most wonderful thing is we had 2 rainy days in a row and the soil needed moisture so badly.  Our cucumbers are coming along now and the vines are covered with tiny fruit and I was so concerned that they wouldn't develop 'cause it had been so dry. 

Judging from the way nature is hurrying this growing season, I expect there will be an early frost this year.  We'll see how that prediction comes out :)  OK I'm not a prophet, but you can tell sometimes by the way things happen in the garden.  The plants got a late start, but they are really rushing to produce seed.

funny, I didn't see this leek flower when I was taking the pictures
this morning.  I was thinking that the leeks must have gotten buried
in the wild flowers, but they must be holding their own.  The parsnips are
coming along well and we'll be having some of those either next year or
the following year.... yum.

The corn is growing quickly now.  Looking forward to having a corn roast in the late summer.  We are about 2-3 weeks behind in the growing season from the Upper Valley where I work.  Our summer squash hasn't done much, but folks at work are bringing in extra summer squash.  Funny how a few hundred feet of elevation can make such a difference.  Even on our hill we might get a frost at the house, but the garden get nothing.

You must disregard the weeds please.  Amazing since I just weeded
last weekend.  The rain really makes the weeds perk up as well
I guess.

I love wild flowers as you can tell.  When we get the house together I will have a wildflower bed, but now they reside in my herb garden... they have lots in common, so it's a good match.  The only thing that didn't grow for me this year in the herb garden was the lavender *sniff, sniff*.  I'm not sure why except we had a dog come and dig up a part of the garden and that may have been where they were planted, but I thought it was above there.  I don't mark my sections very well as you can tell. 

Our poor Muscovy mommas have had a really rough time hatching eggs.  In the old dog house we had two setting hens.  Between the two they managed to hatch 4 eggs.  One died right away, another was lost... probably to a cat or dog, and the other two are so small.  The hens are really curious about these little yellow balls of fluff...

not even sure if you can see them... they are under tha ladder.
Their two mommas are behind the board, but are right there keeping a close eye

then Poppa steps in and chased away the curious hens.

see how tiny... we hope these two make it.

Poor mommas they tried so hard to hatch little ones.  It was just too hot the past few weeks and they were not able to keep the eggs cool enough.  We opened up the coop, but there just wasn't any relief.  They finally abandoned their nests.  We usually have two settings per summer and it has been much cooler, so they may be successful next time.

Hope you are enjoying the summer.