Watering, watering...

What a week this has been for a garden lover!! This warm weather has really made things leap. As in all good things, this weather presents some challenges. The first that comes to mind is keeping things watered. This could be a full time job for one person except I don't have one person who can dedicate their time to watering, so it is like an juggling act, keeping all water going somewhere at all times. I have two wells to draw form here, our well for our house and our well at the barn. The first thing I so when I get up in the morning it to hook up water somewhere in the gardens and then water all my flower beds and hanging baskets. The flower watering takes at least half an hour. Then I put the sprinkler on the lawn and keep it moving around the yard all day long. Down in the gardens I have four different runs of drip tape that I hook up to the water and change every day. I also have to put the sprinkler on the carrots, onions, turnips, spinach and beets. The peas have weep hoses and there are two runs of peas. Then there are the garden pots to hand water with the hose and the seedling trays to hand water. My parents are on vacation and I have watering to do at their place while they are gone. Now you can see why I think watering around here is like keeping many of balls in the air at one time!

I'm really not complaining about the watering. After last summer, I was dying to have to water! Watering keeps me in touch with everything in the garden. As I move the hose for the sprinkler, I inspect the carrots and discover that they may be big enough to pull for next week's markets. As I hook up the drip tape in the corn patch to my amazement there are corn silks already! Hooking up the weep hose on the peas I discover the first fat pods, open them and pop those sweet morsels in my mouth. As I water the flower beds I marvel at the variety of dahlias that are almost ready to bloom--eye candy to go with the tasty peas. What could be better? I would love to write more, but I just got home from the Friday market in Palmer and guess what? I have been gone all day and there is watering to be done, a lot of it.