Stages of fruit growth , beginning of July, 2010

It is dry, dry, dry! The earth has turned to powder. No rain in sight.

I previously gave up growing melons. The nights aren't warm enough when the fruit is ripening to set sugar in them. In the greenhouse I can give them hot nights. Hopefully I'll have nice sweet melons. These already have melons the size of baseballs.

The yellow flowers are birdsfoot trefoil. It is a legume. We mow these fields with riding mowers and catch the grass and legumes. We mulch our plants with them to conserve the moisture in the soil, to prevent the weeds from growing and as fertilizer. This legume is our nitrogen fertilizer.

I am training my kiwi plants up the wild cherry trees. They have grape size, fuzzless fruits. These are called kiwiberries in the stores. They are very delicious and sweet! They will grow as high as the tree will grow and from tree to tree. I have seen vines over 200' in Massachusetts. Having them in the trees will keep the birds happy and hopefully keep the birds out of my kiwi arbour.

This is a rice plant, native to Connecticut lakes. I just put it in. It is caged to protect it from being eaten by muskrats; they love wild rice! If I can get it to mature and produce, without being eaten it will produce so much seed that it will keep coming up on it's own, even if the muskrats eat some. I put in about 20 plants along the mucky shores of the pond.