Still no rain

Dear friends,

It's times like this when giving up on the garden crosses my mind. We've had two months of 100-degree temperatures in a row, with very little rain, and the plants are stressed...even my Xeriscape plants! And to boot, the Lower Colorado River Authority has put watering restrictions on everybody in this area.

But I'm just one of those people who are genetically incapable of giving up. For one thing, we never drench our yards using sprinklers anyway. I collect water from the cat bowls, catch rinse water from the kitchen, and am about to stick a bucket in the shower, too, to catch water there. Our grass has been dead for months, and for that, I'm grateful. It just saves me some work. LOL. Two of our three rainbarrels are empty right now.

I've been researching Native American methods of agriculture and gardening, and that lead me to a book I'd like to recommend, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, which is online now to read. It also comes in printed form, and can be ordered from bookstores.

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden is about a Hidatsu Indian woman who lived in what is now North Dakota from around 1839 to 1932. She was interviewed, and this lead to the documenting and writing of her tribe's methods of growing food. Fascinating reading!

I suppose giving up isn't in my vocabulary! And reading about how people gardened back then with very little resources, well, it makes me feel very lucky. I think I'll go dig up a new bed for planting in September, when hopefully, it'll be cooler, and we'll get some rain!

Dig it!

bobbi c.

Wild sunflowers

For years I collected seeds of these giant wild sunflowers from the side of the road, planted them, and....nothing. All of a sudden, these pop up almost overnight in the back corner of my yard, right beside the fence. I'm sure my neighbors aren't pleased, but I, and the birds, love it!

dig it!

bobbi c.

Climate change is real, folks

Dear friends,

I'm still amazed at the numbers of intelligent people I talk to who do not believe that our climate is changing. Any gardener can see with their own eyes that things are not the same as they were even ten years ago.

Take a look at this map from the Arbor Day Foundation. It shows the changes that happened from just 1990 through 2006. Make sure you click the button to show the map changing.

Amazing, isn't it?

dig it!

bobbi c.