Finally some rain...

It's been over a month, but we finally got about 1/3rd of an inch of rain this week. The soybeans are still doing great though, and the pink-eye-purple-hull peas are finally starting to look like peas. The Lima beans in the back seem to have recovered from the heat, and both those and the ones in the raised bed seem to be doing well now. The green beans were pretty much a failure as I was unable to get them to sprout even on a moist paper towel. Hopefully next year we'll have better luck with seeds from a different company.

One of our zucchini plants completely wilted in just over a day from what appeared to be squash vine borers despite having row covers over it until just before it started blooming. Unfortunately I did not know what to check for before we removed the plant, but a few days later we saw one of the moths on the neighboring zucchini. I had to prune the surviving plant a bit to remove stems that appeared to have been recently bored into. So far the remaining plant is doing well and is producing plenty of zucchini. I also planted a few more seeds just to see if they'd produce a late crop. In the fall we will have to till the bed a bit and remove any caterpillars that managed to survive.

The melons all seem to be doing very well, and we should have over 20 watermelons if they all make it. Hopefully it will rain some more this week and help them along.

Happy (late) 4th of July

Another week and the tomatoes are all beginning to ripen along with several zucchini.  We still have had almost no rain -- nothing longer than 10minutes a couple of times.  Luckily the plants are still doing fine with some drip irrigation and a once-a-week watering for the plants and trees in the back.We did learn why not to use row covers in 90+ degree weather even for new seedlings.  The Lima beans got a bit crispy under it, although the peanuts, watermelon, and pumpkins did fine.  The green beans (Heavyweight II) that we planted in both the back and in a raised bed on the side of the yard are not doing so well.  So far only one or two have come up out of about 20.  Maybe they will live up to their name, and we'll have plenty.

We also seem to have had much better luck planting shelled peanuts instead of leaving them in the shells.  The directions suggested both methods depending on the climate, but so far none of the in-shell peanuts have come up.  All of the shelled ones have, so we're hoping that there will be enough time for them to grow as we planted them pretty late this year.
On the bright side, the watermelon are growing very quickly, and we seem to have several (11-12) from 3 mounds that are larger than a softball.  The cantaloupes are doing pretty well (3-4) and we have one that is now larger than a baseball.  Unfortunately, the watermelon seem to be doing a little too well and are taking over the entire area.  It will be interesting to see how big they get in another week.