A little relief at last.

When the weather is dry then well water is a good thing when applied in a timely manner, but there just isn't anything like THREE AND A HALF INCHES OF RAIN to make a garden stand at attention.

Tropical storm Barry has come and gone. He was just an all night rain storm for us and a blessed event he was too. I didn't have to water anything at all and the whole place is looking better. Of course he did get the grass to growing so I now have to start picking up deadfall preparatory to mowing again, but it's just as well.

Yesterday I picked a five gallon bucket of yellow squash and a few green sweet and hot peppers. Along with some onions from the winter garden I now have twenty four cups of shredded squash, peppers, and onions in the refrigerator mixed with a bit of salt to draw the juices. Tonight I'll drain them then combine with the vinegar, sugar, and spices to make a big batch of squash relish. I've never seen anything like it in the grocery and I like it better than anything on a burger or hot dog. None of mine have ripened red yet so we did buy two ripe sweet peppers to add some color contrast to the mix, but other than that all of the veggies came out of the Dun Hagan garden.

Noticed yesterday that the first okra blossoms should open today, tomorrow at the latest. Except for the peppers seeming to lag a bit everything in the vegetable garden is doing well. Haven't fertilized at all yet except for the hen house litter that I put down and tilled under a month or so before planting. Considering the planted part of the garden is all new ground never before planted I'm happy with it. This coming weekend I'll feed the peppers a bit. I've found that a taste of Epsom salts perks them up. Magnesium leaches out of my sandy soil pretty quick.

Last night I drove in the T-posts for the garden partition fence and laid out the wire, but haven't had time to secure it yet nor have I figured out how I want to do the gate. This coming weekend I hope to have that done then I can start letting the birds in the chicken tractor out for an hour or two in the evenings when I'm home. Saturday morning I took the eight pullets that I raised for the parents of a friend of mine over to them so I now have only twenty five in the tractor. By the time August roles around and they are ready to start laying I should have the second tractor finished and they'll start their slow procession across the orchard into the pasture. In late November or early December they'll make their way at a stately pace back to the corn patch where there should be a good stand of winter rye awaiting them. They'll over winter in the patch then back across the orchard into the pasture so I can till the corn patch preparatory to the spring planting.

I'm hoping to eventually hammer this out into regular cycles much like spring, summer, winter and fall.

We'll see.

.....Alan.