Memorial Day 2022

Memorial Day takes place on the last Monday of May every year.

We honor those who died while serving in our country's armed forces. The tradition started out as Decoration Day around the time the Civil War ended when people often visited graves of soldiers.

Memorial Day is about honoring men and women who died defending the United States of America. 

This day is about remembering with gratitude.

I took this photo at the Normandy American Cemetery located in Colleville-sur-Mer France in October of 2014.

 

Sleep comrades, sleep and rest 

   On this Field of the Grounded Arms

Where foes no longer molest,

   Nor sentry's shot alarms!

 

Ye have slept on the ground before,

   And started to your feet

At the cannon's sudden roar,

   Or the drum's redoubling beat. 

 

But in this camp of Death 

   No sound your slumber breaks;

Here is no fevered breath,

   No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,

   Untrampled lies the sod;

The shouts of battle cease,

   It is the Truce of God!

 

Rest comrades, rest and sleep!

   The thoughts of man shall be

As sentinels to keep

   Your rest from danger free.

 

Your silent tents of green

   We deck with fragrant flowers;

Yours has the suffering been,

   The memory shall be ours. 

 

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep Your rest from danger free. Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

Read more at: https://pickmeuppoetry.org/

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep Your rest from danger free. Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

Read more at: https://pickmeuppoetry.org/

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep Your rest from danger free. Your silent tents of green We deck with fragrant flowers; Yours has the suffering been, The memory shall be ours.

Read more at: https://pickmeuppoetry.or

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

A Plan for my Vegetable Garden this Year

The calendar says May 11, 2022 as I write this blog, the outdoor temperature this afternoon is 88 degrees. It's sunny and breezy, been quite a bit of that of late and no end in sight. This isn't spring, this is all out summer!

How will these early hot days affect my vegetable garden plan this summer?  

A lot.

The credible go to weather experts are calling for continued La Niña conditions through the fall. This means hot and dry, emphasis on the hot and dry. These tough growing conditions require thinking and planning about the best watering management for the entire outdoor landscape. 

Water isn't free like our Colorado sunshine and blue skies.

Thank goodness our mature landscape has more trees and shrubs than perennials and lawn, all of which are watered with drip irrigation. To keep evaporation down further, every plant and in-between is well mulched. The lawn has just three irrigation zones and it's a newer low water needing bluegrass variety. 

This is Ferris doing a bit of sunbathing after his lunch snack, he loves to soak up the heat and sun for about two minutes, then he's right back inside.

Our five raised vegetable beds are also zoned for automatic watering. However, my concern is that vegetables generally need consistent watering from day one of planting through harvest. 

What's the best way to cut down on my watering footprint this growing season?

Easy. I'll plant fewer vegetables and not plant four of the annual ornamental containers I usually put in each spring. Sad, but it makes the best sense in these dry times. 

Conserving water is always a good thing.

My plan is to put in a couple of tomato transplants purchased from one of my favorite, locally owned garden centers. Unfortunately I couldn't start tomato seeds indoors under lights this spring, we had some scheduled and unexpected trips so I couldn't keep seedlings watered and properly tended to while out of town. 

I will also direct seed one, possibly two martini cucumber plants and a Smart Pot® container (or two) of seeded basil. The rest of any open beds and the fall planted garlic bed (once harvested) will be seeded with a cover crop. Once the cover crop is up and growing on its own I'll stop watering the plants. As it remains over the next year it will provide cover from exposed soil and improve the soil structure and fertility when turned over to decompose next spring.

Rain was plentiful in the spring of 2015!

Dear reader - we're all mostly in the same growing zone 5, and living in a dry/arid climate where water is a valuable resource. In one of my blogs a few years ago I wrote about not saying to others - "you should."  My dear Aunt Helen (who gave me this advice) said no one ever liked being told what to do or how to think. She was right. 

Does this mean you should cut back to conserve water?

My hope and prayer is that La Niña changes its mind, reverses course and brings on the rain.  

I'm not holding my breath or my umbrella.

Fall Planted Garlic in May

There's no doubt about it, growing garlic is fairly fool proof provided the weather doesn't go full wonky this month or until harvest (late June into July). By wonky I mean an extreme heavy snow event or pounding hail. I've experienced both events in spring over the years and the garlic definitely wasn't entirely too happy. 

I still harvested several bulbs, but damaged plants generally won't cure well which means long term storage, up to a year with some varieties is iffy.

Here's where my bed of garlic stands today, May 1, 2022. The heavy wind a couple of days ago blew them around quite a bit, but I'm not that concerned at this point.

And what's with this wind of late? As one saying goes, at least it's not sand blowing around. The layer of dirt build up on the surface around our outdoor grill looks pretty gritty to me! 

The next photo was taken in late April of 2017, they were looking very fine - greened up nicely and well on their way to the final stretch of bulb growth before harvest.

The third photo was on May 21, 2019. Oh those late May snow storms so famous in Colorado ... will we have a repeat in 2022?

The last photo was on May 28, 2019 an almost complete crop loss from heavy hail in the middle of the night. The leaves were just too damaged to support the energy needed for the bulbs to finish developing. I cried.

 

 

 

The hard lesson learned is to be ready with tunnels or some kind of plant protection set up the final few months of fall planted garlic or any spring planted crops. 

 

I better get out there and install the tunnels now !!

 

My Video Resources:

Building Inexpensive Tunnels Part I 

 

Building Inexpensive Tunnels Part II