Summer Rain (again)

The garden got 1 ½ “ of rain last night. It was sorely needed. That means of course that all the BT and sulfur was washed off of the plants. This makes a feast for the bugs. The plants will make a feast for us. Everybody wins for a little while. This afternoon the BT and sulfur will be restored to the foliage. A lot of the dead squash leaves and stems will go to the compost.

The infested plants that are put into the compost need to be the center of a hot sandwich. We put grass clippings on the top of the pile. The infested leaves are put on this and more grass clippings are put on the top. In some neighborhoods in Charlotte, people bag their grass clippings. In most neighborhoods they don’t. A lot of this bagged grass goes into the bed of my truck and eventually into the compost pile. Grass clippings are about as close as some city gardeners can get to manure. It is the main ingredient and first stage in most manures anyway.

The eggplants are producing again after a little lull. One plant produced a few eggplants then quit. Now all of the eggplants are producing. So are the watermelons and the cantaloupes. The tomatoes and cucumbers are still chugging along, but the squash is out of business. There are a few patty-pans on the late planted plants. The second crop of squash is growing well, but does not have blossoms yet.


David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/