That’s what I’m talking about!
Finally, I’m in serious daily harvest mode. But it won’t last long, unless we get some rain. It is excruciating to watch the green blips on the radar detour around my yard day after day.
Daylily ‘Winsome Lady’
This tall spider-form daylily is having a spectacular year so far. These are two of the five flowers open yesterday — all more than 6″ across!
Fresh veggies and an array of lovely flowers — seems like summertime heaven to me.
Now if I could just persuade the rain clouds to visit…
Piedmont Gardener 
#1 by Craig on June 19, 2014 - 3:01 pm
I learn much from your entries. Here I am surprised to infer that you don’t use an artificial watering system for your garden. Is the summer rainfall usually fully sufficient in for established vegetable plants in this area? (I’m about to install a mess of drippers for my unshaded garden.)
#2 by piedmontgardener on June 19, 2014 - 4:00 pm
Greetings, Craig. I’m glad you are finding my blog entries helpful. I do water my garden. We use a shallow well to water the vegetables, and many summers, that well goes dry or nearly dry. We tried drip irrigation, but felt that too much water ended up where we didn’t want it, and not enough went where we did want it. Drip hoses are really the only option in a vegetable garden, where plant locations vary annually, and those leak along their entire length, as I’m sure you know. So after trying and failing with drip irrigation, we have settled on holding a hose directly over the bases of plants for a minute or two, depending on the plant. This process is enormously time-consuming and not particularly pleasant for the waterer, but it is the best solution we’ve found to maximize our limited watering resources. Hence my constant plea to the heavens for rain.
As for watering landscape plantings, I only plant perennials, shrubs, and trees in the fall, because that is the optimal time in our region. This minimizes their need for supplemental water. However, during hot dry summers, we do spot water landscape plants planted the previous fall. I think constant drip irrigation around landscape plantings is a bad idea, because it encourages shallow root growth in plants. In my climate, deep roots are optimal for plant success.
Thanks for stopping by!
#3 by Craig on June 21, 2014 - 2:42 am
May the rains come. Thank you for these extra details.
#4 by piedmontgardener on June 21, 2014 - 5:26 am
And for you too, Craig. Perhaps our luck is changing. My yard got a quick, hard rain last night. The rain gauge read 0.43 of an inch. Here’s hoping more arrives soon!