And maybe someday we will find that it wasn't really wasted time
The scurs and the Weather Eye were hit and miss, mostly miss with our continued thirst for rain. Does that change or more of the same ol’ same ol’? Starting Wednesday, mostly cloudy becoming mostly sunny with a modest chance of rain. Highs in the upper 80’s with lows in the upper 50’s. Thursday, sunny with highs in the low 80’s and lows in the mid-60’s. Sunny on Friday with a slight chance of rain. Highs in the upper 80’s with lows in the upper 60’s. Saturday, mostly sunny with a modest chance of an evening shower or thunderstorm. Highs in the low 90’s with lows in the mid-60’s. Mostly sunny on Sunday with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the mid-80’s with lows in the low 60’s. Monday, mostly sunny with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms developing. Highs in the mid-80’s with lows in the mid-60’s. Mostly sunny Tuesday with highs in the mid-80’s and lows in the low 60’s. On August 6th the sun will set at 8:30 p.m. CDT, one-half hour earlier than it did on the summer solstice. On the 8th we begin losing daylight at just over 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The normal high for August 8th is 80 and the normal low is 60. Looks like the scurs may need to brush up on their rain dance technique.
Crops continue to thunder along although the normal stress areas, namely sand and gravel areas, are becoming more evident. The heavier soils are showing little sign of stress from the road anyway. In the fields themselves they still look decent for the most part. Most corn was in the blister stage this past week although it wasn’t unusual to run across some that was still tasseling and silking, not yet pollinated. There is likely some that is milk stage as well; early planted, early maturing hybrids in particular. This begins about three weeks after pollination.
Soybeans are also a mixed bag in terms of maturity. Looking at some Monday, the bulk of it was R4, with a pod ¾” or longer at one of the uppermost four nodes on the main stem with a fully expanded trifoliate. Was also in some, here again earlier planted earlier maturing varieties, which were closer to R5, with seeds 1/8” long or longer in a pod at one of the four uppermost nodes on the main stem with a fully developed trifoliate. This happened to be in an area that had received some timely rains when some of the rest of us went without a few more days. They were loaded with pods. Soybean aphids are becoming easier to find although numbers are nowhere near the treatment levels of 250 per plant with 80% of the plants infested and aphid levels increasing.
Rainfall has been following the highway systems and in particular the I-90 and US Hwy 14 corridors. We’ve been very fortunate thus far, however. It seems to even out eventually and we’ve been the beneficiaries of some significant precipitation events without major consequences as far as crop damage. For July we tallied 5.61” in Bugtussle and at the ranch, 6.48”. I was on vacation in Canada during the last rainfall event. Between vacation and Crop Tour, this is not the first time this has happened. One of my customers made note that I should go on vacation more often. I’d be OK with that. Crop Tour once a year is more than enough. Crop Tour doesn’t start for me until August 20th so if you need rain, I’m taking donations for another vacation prior to that.
The garden just exploded after the rain. Luckily the resulting canopy has kept the weeds from doing likewise. We got ripe tomatoes last week and a large picking of string beans on the Tendergreen variety. Some of those were already overripe but the sheep didn’t care. The Blue Lake variety was slightly later to start flowering but when opening up the canopy, it looked like lilies of the valley there were so many white blossoms. There should be beans to pick until the cows come home. The Green Dragon cukes were hitting full stride and produced a grocery bag full on Sunday. The Munchers and Straight 8’s have yet to produce but are flowering like crazy. Probably the most surprising thing was the spaghetti squash. The later planted vine crops weren’t tagged so it’s a surprise to see what shows up on the vines and where. I was shocked to see several full-sized models presenting themselves. They’ve wasted no time.
There has been some excellent homegrown sweet corn consumed at the ranch this past week. Some from the Waldorf are where local Corn Palace owner has a large plot. As well as some from Hallie’s Sweet Corn Emporium. Our own patch is a few weeks out yet, plenty of time to get the electric fence in place to thwart the 4-legged masked bandits. Both plantings look like they should supply plenty for us to eat. The sheep again benefit from all the husks and cobs that make their way over the fence daily. They made short work of an overgrown zucchini while they were at it. They’re setting up camp outside the bathroom window in the morning and looking in to see if we might come out to toss something their direction. They’ve become part of the entitlement generation. Wonder why?
Insects are also part of the summer experience. The garden hums with bees in the mornings, pollinating the cucurbits as well as some in the string beans. Crickets are suddenly chirping all over the place. Something we haven’t seen since we aren’t raising carrots and dill, yet, are the black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. These were common when we were raising garden as a kid, found on dill in particular but also on carrot tops occasionally. They were a novelty and never got to the point of being pests. The green, black and yellow larvae were fun to raise in fruit jars with dill until they pupated. Turning the fully developed black swallowtail butterflies loose after they hatched was just the icing on the cake.
As mentioned, the larvae feed on carrot family plants in the garden such as dill, carrots, fennel and parsley. They also utilize wild plants such as wild parsnip, wild carrot and poison hemlock, all weeds that have been on the increase over the past several years. One might expect there would be a corresponding increase in black swallowtail butterflies as well. That hasn’t seemed to be the case and I rarely see the larvae, pupae or adults in my daily travels. As with monarchs, there are more variables to the equation than food sources. Is all the ditch mowing destroying the overwintering pupae? Do relatively open winters hamper their survival? Are they encountering disease or parasitism limiting their population? Don’t know but I may have to plant some carrots and dill just to take a closer look. Have fruit jar, will travel.
https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/black-swallowtail-papilio-polyxenes/See you next week…real good then.
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