It has been pretty dry

It has been pretty dry for the past few days, so I needed to give the garden some much needed water. Unless I have been a little neglectful, and later see I have plants that are dying, I always water my garden when it is mostly, if not entirely, in the shade. As you can see from my sun pattern series, this occurs before 8 AM and around 8 PM. In these shots, it was a little earlier, maybe about 7. MW and I were getting ready to take LD and MO for a walk, so I wanted to get it watered before I left. I did not want to over water and waste water.

BTW, it is a fear of wasting water that leads me to water when the sun has little chance of causing quicker evaporation of the water. In fact, I get a little mad when I see people watering their yards or gardens in the middle of the day when the sun is most hot. It also bothers me how much water Las Vegas uses in all their fountains in the desert. That direct water from the lush north of Nevada through aqueducts to supply the city and suburbs with water. If it is not enough to just move the water to a pretty unnatural place for water, the big hotels and casinos insist on wasting it with water shows and fountains. Well that is enough ranting for now.

Bunny

The little concrete bunny, which was in our backyard when we bought the house is the only bunny allowed in my yard. It has proven quite supportive of my watering efforts.

Garlic

It is coming along nicely; it is just about time to snip the buds coming up through the middle of the leaves. Any suggestions on what to do with them? I went to a garlic festival last summer and many had pickled them. Others had simply steamed them. I am told they have the consistency of string beans with a hint of garlic.

A friend of mine once inquired why you snip the blossom shoot.

I told him garlic has two ways it can reproduce. First, it wants to propagate with its seeds which will eventually come from the blossom (below right). The second way, and the way in which we all would prefer it to reproduce is through the heads in the ground. By cutting the blossom shoot, the plant puts all its efforts for reproduction into the head of the plant in the ground. Without cutting the shoot, the garlic would produce an inadequate head of garlic. Cutting encourages the growth of this head. Looking at them just now I see I need to get out there and cut them this evening. Maybe I will steam them for dinner. The problem is I have very few ready to be cut.



Just a note for those who know little about garlic, each clove of a garlic head will produce a new head. You plant in the fall, and leave it there to Winter. Garlic is one of the first things up in the Spring, right along with the daffodils and tulips. You harvest garlic sometime in July.

First Blossom in Bloom

Drum Roll please. .. The winner for first blossom in bloom is... the Zucchini.

I am trying to coax it up one of my DWYCWWYH contraptions; it finally reached it yesterday (picture forthcoming). This contraption is made from the legs of an A-Frame ladder (there was a pool in the backyard when we bought the house exactly where my garden is located). The two legs are held together with screws into a 2x6 and faced with chicken wire. I used it last year for cucumbers, but last year was a bad year for cucumbers here.