I walk through my garden many times a day on my way to the store or the fields; stopping perhaps to pull a weed but otherwise hurrying through. This morning I turned on the garden irrigation. This is always beautiful as the morning light shines through the mist from the sprinklers. After the irrigation went off, I walked through, tea in hand, just to enjoy it, which is something I almost never do. It was so beautiful; all the borders were billowing mounds of color. Weeds aplenty and lots of undone work but i purposefully ignored it. Sometimes it is good to see what has been accomplished instead of always focusing on what is yet undone.

We have suddenly fallen behind around here. I find August a difficult month always; I don’t have the energy I had in June and there is still so much to do. The corn maze should have been cut this week but we ended up spending most of our days late this week filling large blueberry orders. When Graham and I finally got out for some corn maze mowing I smelled heated belt and then snap; the drive belt came in to Fortunately the mower was in an easily accessible place: I was able to scoop it up with the bucket of my tractor and haul it to the shop.

The drive belt was very hard to access and it took me a long time to figure out its correct routing. I often have difficulty working on equipment (or other problems) because I will think how something “should” be, discover it doesn’t work, and then be unable to see other options. Solution: instead of telling myself, “but this has to right,” accept that it isn’t and look for how else it could be done.

Like produce, pie sales swing wildly for no reason I can tell. We had been selling about 12 pies a week. Last week, 27! This week, 7. What accounts for this? Sun spots, I think or perhaps planetary alignment. The pies are absolutely delicious. we receive tremendous customer feedback. Perhaps soon I should write down the recipes.

This May was very, very wet which made planting impossible except for a few very windows. While changing irrigation pipe last night I thought of a potential solution. I will plow mounds this fall (plowing two furrows together with a single-bottom plow). The mounds intended for caneberries will be covered with compost this fall. The bulb mounds will be on 10ft spacing with grass planted between. Vegetables will be on immediate spacing with straw from the hay fort spread in the dead furrow to lessen compaction and add organic material. Concerning that hay fort straw: I have formerly burned all but the completely dry straw. What a waste! This year I plan to spread almost all of it on the fruit trees, baby blueberries, and raspberries.

Well, hooray for better internet access! We have been suffering with dial-up but recently upgraded to wireless. Not high-speed, but much better. I could drive to any business I frequent in about the same time I could go there on line. So, back to updating.

On Saturday, I noticed a wet patch over the top of my buried mainline as it runs past my display garden, an area where I have had many, many problems in the past. Of late my brother, who also farms some of the property on which I live, has been irrigating with a gun and mini-reel. This seems to be creating a lot of back-pressure at the well head, as the pressure relief valve is leaking, though the pressure gauge reads only 80lbs, as it should. Also the pressure adjust gate doesn’t seem to be affecting the pressure as it should. I plan to dig and fix the leak tonight and talk to the folks at Stettler’s Irrigation Supply tomorrow about what might be going on. More (hopefully good news) to follow.

Dave Barth, field man from Pratum Coop came out this morning to look at my new planting of Raspberries, about half of which are 2″ to 3″ with poor color and some browned leaves; the other half are 3′ and emerald green. I had suspected symphyla were the cause but had been unable to find any in the roots of the plants I examined. Dave did find the little vermin in the soil beneath the plants, confirming my suspicion: its a symphyla problem. Indeed we were able to find the same symptoms in a planting of Triplecrowns immediately adjacent. What to do? Symphyla are usually treated by incorporating Loresban into the soil, which obviously can’t be done in an established field. Dave said “apply 150lb/acre of ammonium sulphate, water briefly, apply the maximum  amount of Loresban, and then water extensively to carry the chemical to the symphs. As my brother will be using the irrigation for the rest of the week, I will put this plan into action next week, hopefully on Monday.