Local Warming

The summer of 2004 was delightful. Not once did the temperature reach 95 degrees and 90 degree days were rare. The local man relished the bountiful yields of the garden, crediting his newly acquired gardening skills. He and local woman even donated 50 pounds of cantaloupes to the local Food Bank. This year reality came calling. The spring was cool and wet. Planting times were pushed back, but June arrived. It was warm and the veggies flourished. It got hot and dry, and hotter and drier. By July, temperatures hit 90 plus day after day. It was too hot for the tree swallows. They left and the garden lost its anti-insect air cover. It rained to the North, to the West, and the South. To the East - heavy thunder showers, even flash flood warnings. It rained everywhere but in Stephenson. Tugging weeds from the garden's shale soil created puffs of dust. Daily watering became necessary. The weeds loved their daily bath. They thrived, sprouting inches every night. The garden became a tangle of weeds with portentous seed tassels and some pretty blue, yellow or pink flowers. Potatoes growing beyond the pale were nibbled to naked stalks by rabbits and deer (someone had opined that potatoes do not have to be fenced because potato leaves are poisonous and are avoided by rabbits and deer). The groundhog living in the woods, not satisfied with the apple drops in the orchard, dug under the garden fence to sample the melon buffet. (Just a bite out of this one and a nibble on that one).
And then - The August Surprise. One Monday morning, Local Man noticed that more than half of the leaves on his hardy kiwi vines had shriveled to brown reticulated ghosts. On closer inspection, he saw hordes of Japanese Beetles. Knots of six or eight beetles crowded onto leafy nodes audibly eating and doing whatever these nasty things do when they believe no one is watching. So much for organic gardening, out came the malethion spray. The next day they had taken up residence on the Rose of Sharon bush which was also sprayed. Next on their top-ten dining list were the raspberries followed by the newly planted dwarf apples and asian pears and the corn. A few even sought out the feathery August tops of the asparagus. A trap was set out to attract beetles from the surrounding area. It requires daily emptying. Two weeks after the first spray, a second round of spraying was required. There is one bright spot, somewhere on the internet it has been written that the beetles need to burrow into the ground to reproduce and that a dry lawn will decrease reproduction success. Local Man's crunchy lawn has to be the most inhospitable place for beetle grubs. The 2006 season will be better. Hope springs eternal! This summer, Local Man has gained even more respect for farmers of the Valley who deal with too wet and too dry, too hot and too cold, with weeds, insects and plant diseases as if their lives (and ours)depend upon it.