What It Takes This Year to Get Green Beans

In previous years, rabbits got the beans first.  This year it has been rain and insects.

Ready to replant some beans that the rain washed away and/or made the seed rot.

The leafhopper really likes beans as their signature is inserting a toxin that turns the leaves yellow, then brown.  The plant has to fight the toxin rather than creating a bean.  These beans were covered but as they flowered, the cover was removed to make way for the bees to do their job.

Thinking that starting them in trays might give them a head start. 

While starting them in trays helped, I covered them only to find that some did not survive this long stretch of unbearable heat, despite irrigation.

Getting the soil ready for another planting of tasty haricot vert.

We'll see how this planting does. 
Meanwhile, my backup is the pole beans that are starting to flower this week.

The leafhopper likes them but I am hoping they will overcome the pest.

Late June, Early July Scenes from the Farm

In the last four weeks, we have had ten and a half inches of rain.  There's been lots of mud and the summer crops are just holding on, while the spring and fall crops are doing well. We may have a great crop of cabbage and leeks.  We'll see as a heatwave begins this week.

Putting straw mulch on the potatoes after hilling; then covering with white row cover them until harvest in September.

Yellow Swallowtail caterpillar devouring the flowering dill.

Young Barn Swallow taking a brief rest on the tomato stakes between eating mosquitoes.

Today, I missed taking a picture of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers!  I hope to see them again.