my cylinder count: five

merriam park on a summer evening.

Our 'cylinder count' went up by one this week.  We own a small rental property, and since the caretaker has moved on, I've mowed exactly once with our reel mower.

I love the reel mower, but it's not the easiest thing to load into the car, and it's not the best at mowing the tough weeds that have grown up in the rental building's yard over the years.

dog days

garlic from the garden

It's been a quiet week.  The heat and humidity have gone away.  The nights are getting cooler, the sun lower.

Gita and I took a walk last night.  The air was cool- almost cool enough for a jacket.  The katydids and crickets sang for us.  I could smell the scent of flowers- maybe datura, maybe mockorange, maybe the last of the oriental lilies- I wasn't sure.  I could smell them, but not see the source.

this is your garden on japanese beetles. minnesota 2011

on our 'black ice' plum tree planted this spring

More accurate is to say 'japanese beetles on your garden'.  I just like the 80's reference.

The infestation has gotten worse since I wrote the last column about japanese beetles.  I've picked off a few hundred in our yard thus far.  At first I tried picking them off, then stepping on them, but some flew away.  So now I crush them a bit between my thumb and forefinger, then step on them. That works.

growing bananas in minnesota, cannas in the basement

first reddish tomato spotted today- july 24

My apologies for the washed-out quality of the photos. I started taking pictures after 8:30, and the sun is beginning to go down about that time now.  By the time I was done, it was after 9:00.

The sun is headed back south- but we still have a lot of summer left.  The best part of it really- the quiet (except for the cicadas) steamy dog days of August.  The slowly cooling evenings, the transition to early fall.  This is the best time of year.  The heat and humidity of the last few weeks has to end at some point- and today it seemed to be on the way out.  At least for a while.

the plague of japanese beetles

japanese beetle.  image courtesy of University of Minnesota Extension Service

 I was weeding the garden tonight, cutting down the fava beans which have wilted in the heat.  Favas like cool weather, and thrive in the spring, then tend to get a black fungal disease as the Minnesota summer turns humid and hot.  So I cut them down about this time of year.  The storm last week knocked most of them down anyway, so I was just finishing what Mother Nature started.

stopping to smell the flowers

i took this photo in june.  my daughter loves flowers.  i love that she loves flowers.

 It's the middle of the gardening season.  The leafy greens have bolted and the tomatoes and peppers and squash aren't ready just yet.  A good time to take a deep breath, kick back, and smell the roses.  Or have a beer.  Maybe both.

real men use reel mowers

"Real men use reel mowers" is one of the best quotes I've gotten from my current boss.  He's an older landscape architect who's been with the company for over 30 years, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him.  He's quicker (and skinnier) than most of the people half his age that work there.

vacation in wisconsin

me chilling with the kids

 

hartman creek state park

hiking around the lake

We've been out of town for a week.  I thought I might post from the road, but that just never happened.

That's a good thing.  We all had a chance to relax and not do all the things that normally take up our time.  That includes blogging.

water water everywhere

we have so much water in the rain barrel- i just let them play

 The gardens are on autopilot.  They've been planted and weeded a few times, mulched, or at least most of them have been.  The soil is warm, the rain falls, and everything grows just as it says it would.

The farmers in Minnesota- the real ones with hundreds of acres that is- not the eighth acre variety- are having a hard time getting crops in with all of the rain.  It seems that I hear or read one or two articles a week lately about how late the planting season has been, or how poor the outlook is for harvest this year.

raising kids and gardens in the city

do little boys ever get tired of playing in water?

We had some beautiful rainstorms this week- slow, steady rain with a few claps of thunder, but never enough to be scary or to even thing of going down to the basement.  No- just a nice soaking rain that fills the rain barrel and soaks everything evenly.  Just as I was beginning to wonder if the mid-summer dry spell was coming early.