Summer is Weird

White Balloon Flowers

Every summer is weird, but not weird in the same way. Last summer was dry, dry, dry until it rained, rained, rained most of July and then things exploded in the garden and there was a jungle of bean vines and morning glory vines that completely swallowed two compost bins, and there were millions of plant-destroying, very cocky chipmunks plaguing me daily and eating all the sunflowers before they even had time to set seeds. This summer it was wet, wet, wet and cold so nothing germinated the way it should have, and since then it’s been dry, dry, dry, dry and hot and humid, so all the plants are ready in the wrong order and too soon because they’re pretty sure they’re going to die soon so they’re maturing ‘way early – unless they aren’t. Potatoes were done just after the strawberries, which were late; onions and garlic were done a week or so later; yellow beans came and went in a couple of weeks, before the green beans, which are only now producing huge crops right next to the shell beans, half of which are already done. 

Today it’s raining, and has been for a few hours, and weather gods willing, will continue for the rest of the day – we need it desperately. My carrots are very long and hairy – long taproots seeking fluid, lots and lots of tiny hair-like roots to suck up the measly amounts of surface water we’ve been trying to douse them with every few days. The blueberries were early and long-lasting and tasty and prolific, making up for last year’s bummer of a crop; but the raspberries are either dry or moldy, except for an occasional day when I can find a handful of perfect ones to munch on while I’m weeding. 

Indoor hibiscus vacationing on the wart

The French pumpkin plant has taken over the leek bed and is headed for the now-empty yellow bean bed, the apple tree, and has climbed onto and into one of the big compost bins, and sent another vine out into the field. How it’s managing to do that in this weather is beyond me, but, Yay French! The purple French peas are also still producing flowers and pods – not very sweet in this heat, but, hey. I did pull a bunch of them up because they were totally shading out the okra, but one end of the row continues to produce. Almost all the sunflower blossoms are now heavy with seed and are staring down at the ground instead of at the sky; and the grain amaranth is nearly as tall as the apple tree at this point. 

Amaranth up close

Lavender-colored squash bugs, which lay burnt-orange colored sesame seed-size eggs, have attacked the gigantic summer squash plant and are also across the garden in the zucchini plants. I had an infestation of these weird bugs maybe 5 years ago and hadn’t seen them since. They’re strange: the normal shape of a squash bug but odd colors, and really freakily aware of me. When I lift a leaf, a dozen or more bugs will wave their antennae at me then scoot, really fast, to get out of my sight. I can’t find this variety in any of my bug books or on-line, and the preternatural awareness of humans is strange. These are the only bugs I use insecticide on, because they can decimate a plant by boring into its trunk, which then rots, and then they move on to the next plant, and I don’t want them decimating the winter squashes, too. They smell a little like ripe cheese, strangely – or maybe it’s the rotting plant trunk that has the smell. They’re too numerous, too fast, and too aware to scoop off and dispose of. I use a spray pesticide very carefully, spraying the bugs themselves and being very very very careful to avoid spraying any blossoms nearby, doing my best to protect bees.

Every summer brings its own critters, too, often endearing (fawns and hummingbirds), mysterious (the funky critter that lived in the compost one year), annoying (last year’s explosion of chipmunks), or just – well – odd. We missed Old Lady Snapper this spring, no dogs to raise the alarum when she came to lay her eggs, but we have no doubt that she did. But The Husband watched a momma turkey in the front field with her three babies the other day. I missed the whole drama because I was out in the garden – of course – weeding – of course – and they were gone by the time I went to look. The babies, he said, were playing on a bunch of tree limbs leftover from this spring’s cutting down of damaged trees. Momma wanted to move on and headed off for the tree-line, dutifully followed by two of her babies. One, however, stayed behind, perched on a tree limb, and a few minutes later, momma hustled back to collect the bad baby, leaving the others out of sight. I may have missed it, but I can easily imagine what the conversation was between mother and child.

A view under an amaranth leaf

Cedar waxwings have been visiting the blueberry bushes, cleaning up the remains of the berries; and at dusk, our airspace is filled with dragonflies – dozens of them, hovering and darting here and there, with hummingbirds dashing about amongst them as they fly between the scarlet runner beans and their feeders on the wart. There have been too many bitey bugs out all summer, so we’re thrilled the dragonflies are working so hard.

The last week or two I’ve also found several thumb-nail-sized toads, in the garden, in the garage (that one got a ride out to the grass), in the driveway (ours is gravel). I have to assume that the Toady I’ve been annoying all summer as I move from garden bed to garden bed watering must be a mom or dad. I’m not sure where toads lay their eggs…they don’t love water like frogs do. Let me look that up…

…OK, I’m back, without a definitive answer. Most toads lay eggs on grass and stuff on water’s edge – which we have plenty of, as I live on an island, surrounded by two ponds connected in a circle by a running-water marsh that runs through the back forty, and the larger marsh across the street connected to my ponds by streams running under the road. Others breed on land, but I didn’t take the time to read far enough to see if any of those varieties live here. At any rate, let me just say that thumbnail-sized toads are pretty cute, but I haven’t had a camera with me whenever I’ve run into one, so I can’t prove it.

Double Calendula

The season has almost changed: we’re in the beginnings of the fifth season, which the Chinese call Late Summer, the time when all growing things are at their ripest, their most nutritious, their sweetest. It doesn’t have a set time, nor does it last for any particular number of days or weeks. We get to decide it for ourselves – it’s when we begin our harvests, the true harvests of grain, winter squashes, storage beans, and most years, onions and garlic and shallots and so on. In my garden, Late Summer has arrived.

May it last for many weeks, and may the butternut squashes and pumpkins survive untouched by weird lavender bugs!

August 21, 2019

Wild daisies, CA poppies, covering a paved path

All photos Deb Marshall