Of Rain, Wind, and Sun

It’s Tuesday, and I am at home enjoying some precious vacation hours.  We had another rainstorm yesterday around suppertime.  It didn’t last long, but it has left its mark.  There was a little hail but I did not notice that it was especially windy.  Must have been though.  I had a pretty sad sight to see in the garden this morning.

In case any of you reading this are non-gardeners, I will say that corn’s natural posture is vertical.  This horizontal position is not desirable at all. 

I have three kinds of corn this year.  One is very small patch of bi-color corn for fresh eating (almost ready to eat… like maybe tomorrow?) and that was not damaged.  And we have a good size patch of yellow “canning” corn (Jubilee, not much gets canned actually, mostly it’s frozen) which looks just fine (it’s a very late variety and is not ready yet either).  This flattened corn is my cornmeal corn.  Maybe (probably) it caught the wind because it was so tall; much of it was eight feet or better.

So, as I was picking the beans today I was thinking of another story (oh no, here she goes again!) but nothing to do with beanstalks.  It’s the old one about how Sun and Wind got into an argument about who was stronger so Sun challenged Wind to make the human guy on the ground take his coat off.  So the wind blew and blew, but the man only wrapped his coat around himself more tightly.  Then Sun said “I can make him take his coat off” and proceeded to do just that. 

Well, looking at my corn, I'd say that Wind has won this round.  I have seen this happen before though, and I have seen corn as flat as this stand up again.  So we will see.  Maybe Sun (and I) will win in the end.

A couple of my tomatoes were blown over, cages and all, but they were easy enough to stand up again.  Picked a few cherry tomatoes, but overall the tomatoes are pretty slow in maturing.  Picked cucumbers and zucchini, more beans, and some onions.  I was really happy to find a pretty large amount of sugar snap peas too, and this beautiful broccoli and cauliflower.  Today I am expressing gratitude for the unknown person who invented row covers, because these cabbage relatives are spotless and have no little green tenants.

I also harvested basil and oregano for drying today.  The basil is done, dried in the microwave again, and the oregano is in the dehydrator.  We go through a LOT of oregano around here because we have pizza pretty much weekly and make our own sauce.  It’s easy… really!

The goats are pretty happy too.  They enjoyed a care package of treats from Leslie this morning, AND got broccoli and cauliflower leaves…. A particular favorite!

I had an amazing salad for lunch, and there will be some awesome stir-fry for supper tonight.  I love this time of year!!!