We have been having a great deal of hot, dry weather. While I do enjoy summer, I find the 30 C + temperatures to be too much for me. The crops really need a good rain too. The corn is starting to get that spikey look when it curls its leaves to conserve water, and second cut hay has not grown much at all since we did first cut because the grass & alfalfa doesn't grow well without rain, it just goes dormant. It is not so dry yet that we are in danger of loosing our crops but the crops certainly are not doing as well as they could with a good rain. Our vegetable garden is loving the heat as some evenings we put the sprinkler on it. The tomato plants are doing so well. I am very glad I have planted hardy perennial plants in the flowerbeds as I have not been watering them at all, and though I am not getting the usually abundance of flowers, the plants are still doing fine. The only things I have watered in my garden are the blackberry bush and the strawberry plants I planted recently because they are not established yet and will die with out the extra water. I have started planting some berries in flowerbeds as I figured why can't they beautiful and functional. I think the strawberry plants will make a nice, and tasty, groundcover. I just wish the temperatures would drop by a few degrees so I can get back out there and do some more weeding. Thankfully this year we planted the vegetable rows far enough apart that we can take the rototiller between to take care of the weeds, but I still weed the rows by hand, and they are starting to look weedy again.
