75 bar falls 29.89 0mph N dew-point 59 Sunrise 5:49 sunset 8:49 Summer
Last Quarter Thunder Moon
The garden speaks. Last month, when I dug up my first garlic, it was not a head, but a single large clove. What the? Back to the garlic culture book. Descaping? Oops. I forgot to take off the flower and seed forming stalk. It suppresses bulb formation. Now, a month later after I descaped, bulb formation proceeds. I do not know whether it will get where it would have, but I just pulled up one garlic bulb that looks pretty well defined, though not completely. The individual cloves are not yet distinct, though their formation is clear.
The tallest corn is now well over 6 feet high. No tassels yet. The beans have begun a very productive season and the onions are ready to dry. After we dry them, we can story them in burlap bags in the furnace room. The squash and watermelon have demonstrated their power to dominate territory. Our garden paths and boulder walls are in danger of disappearing at some points.
The Cherokee Purple tomato plants have fruits that have begun to turn a dusky red, shading now toward purple. So far I have not noticed a tendency to disease which can be a problem growing heirloom vegetables. I plan to save seeds and heads of garlic since these vegetables will breed true and not separate into warring varieties as most hybrids will.
The lilies continue their quiet fireworks.
I have had this idea for a long time about a flower symphony. Each flower would get a lietmotif, as in Wagner, each color would have a note or a phrase. The whole piece would have a somber, quiet opening, andante, for the slumber of winter. Then an agitato as the ground breaks loose with the warmth of spring and, in their bloom succession, the flowers emerge, their leitmotifs varied by color phrases, until we pass out of the spring flowers into the early summer blooms. This third movement is tranquil as the garden settles into its summer patterns, again the leitmotifs ordered by bloom time and varied by color phrasing. The fourth and final movement returns to andante as the asters, the fall blooming crocus, clematis and mums emerge, then die back. The final movement stops for a bit, then a presto sequence of lietmotifs, then grave, ending with bassoon, bass drum, and bass viol.
Many do not like programmatic music and I understand why, being a fan of Mozart and Bach, both abstract and interested in following the music’s own logic, not an outside one. Even so, I offer this because it is the way I see the garden now after so many years. The flowers emerge, bloom, dieback and another group, adapted to a slightly different season, replace them. These movements are like a symphony in my mind.