I spent some time clearing out the edge lawn-edge of my garden plot. When I was digging out the weeds and clumps of grass, I dug up Japanese beetles and some kind of larvae I've only seen on websites and pesticide packages.

I've tried to be "brave" about squishing up the posts that will ruin my plants, but doing it with my hands is so hard. I have to be wearing gloves, and it helps if I can pick up the creature with soil so I don't have to look at the guts or feel the crunch.

The wind has been blowing around the green mesh fencing I have on the outside edge of my plot. It's an east-west fence and it billows in the northern and southern wind. The posts are holding up well, but the bottom edge isn't secure. When I cleaned it up, I pinned down the edges with garden staples. I probably bought twice as many as I needed, but I'm covered to be sure and I have extra just in case.

I cloched a few of the greens I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday. It really worked well with the spinach and lettuce. In just a couple of days they look really great.

Some of the baby tomato plants I started and transferred to the garden have completely disappeared. Not even a wilted, flattened stem. I hope that they might just be sleeping from the shock and they'll perk up in a few days. It's happened before with other plants, but I've never started tomatoes before. I still have some that haven't been moved, so I will let them grow more before I put them in the ground. I'm very happy to say that not all of the tomatoes I've already planted have died. I'm very excited to see what happens.

I didn't get to the garden today, but I plan on going out tomorrow when it's not very, very hot. I churned up the dirt a bit. With the rain and watering, the silt washed away leaving a shiny shellac of silica on top. The water just runs off to the low spots. So far I'm not able to churn up all of the garden because in areas I've seeded, the plants aren't big enough to see clearly. When the water washes over the top the baby plants are deep enough that their stems are locked into the silica and they aren't washed away.

I'll take more pictures tomorrow. I've also got to install the strings for the beans and other climbers (they're doing great).

This bit of weather coming up is really warm for Minnesota in May. We've had a really warm spring (and winter, and fall), but there is always a chance that something strange can happen with the weather. I think we'll skip the tornadoes this week since it's already been warmish.

Pictures! Tomorrow! Yay!

It Smells Like Rain. Again.

The soil in our garden is strange to me. Instead of black, rich topsoil like that where I grew up (at least 2 feet deep), the garden soil is really sandy with dirt that is more like silt.

When I dug a hole for my water storage, I got almost 15 inches before I hit a 1.5 inch layer of sand. Below that was a dirt layer where I've found insulated wire and pipes. Below that is a compacted clay mix. I came across enough buried pipe that I had to stop digging. I'm not sure what was in this spot before the building was made in 1981, but the stuff left behind is under our yard and garden; our top 1-2 feet of soil are a cover job for the construction junk below.

Sand collected on the surface of the soil after the rain.

When it rains, the rain will flatten the surface of the soil. When it's smoothed out, the water rolls off instead of absorbing and pool in low spots. The silt gets washed off the high spots and sand is left behind. Since I've trenched a bit  between my beds, the trenches fill with the silty dirt, I scoop it up and put it back on the bed and mix it in after the rain.

If it has rained, we all go out with hoes and small cultivators to scratch up the surface of the soil. If we don't break up the sand on the surface, it turns really hard like concrete, which makes the water situation worse. The turning of the surface also helps with weeds, and gives the surface texture to attempt to keep the soil and water in place.

I've got two problems. The rain keeps washing away the top of the soil. The other problem is the overcast cool. We really need a stretch of warm, sunny days to dry things up and put them to rights. The plants just won't grow when it's this cool.

A shiny, sandy crust after the rain. Seeds trying to break out.

The latest soybeans I planted are coming in very slowly. Many of the first set of seed I planted rotted from the cool damp. This second set is barely breaking through and there are still a lot of bald spots. I can't scratch up this surface because I don't want to disrupt the seeds that haven't emerged yet or the root systems of the very small stuff.

According to the news, Minnesota farms have had twice the amount of rain we'd normally have and the crops are half as tall. Standing water is starting to drown the plants and hay that could be harvested can't be because heavy equipment would get stuck in the mud. It's too early to say the crops are badly damaged, but more rain is worrisome. Though I live in the suburbs now, I grew up listening to KBEW in the morning before school with Paul Harvey and the daily commodity prices. Somehow crop status was burned into my brain as a measure to determine if all is right with the world.

The rain is supposed to start in the next few hours and it is supposed to rain on and off for at least three more days. Severe weather is also possible.

Think good thoughts for us.