By Bob Beyfuss
For Capital Region Independent Media
The heat and drought we experienced most of the summer has been replaced by frequent torrential downpours.
As I said last week, once the soil is saturated, any extra rainfall simply runs off and cannot be stored, except in reservoirs. New York City sucks up a billion gallons of water every day, all of which comes from their reservoirs, which are mostly located in our region.
The drainage ditch across the road from my house that I call the “Beyfuss Brook” jumped its bank after the latest 2-inch downpour and it washed out part of the road. This happens pretty often. I think my local highway departments like working on my road. I don’t blame them. I like it up here, too! Within a week or two, we will need more rain to replace what the plants are using.
For the first time all summer, I am seeing mushrooms in the woods and on lawns. My neighbor gave me a tasty puffball I had for dinner and my shiitake mushroom bolts are fruiting on their own accord, without needing to be soaked in my rain barrels. Using rain barrels for soaking shiitake bolts are yet another good reason to have these on your property.
Shiitake mushrooms are really pretty easy to grow. I hope one of my favorite fall mushrooms, Maitake, aka “Hen of the Woods,” fruits this year in its usual spots, after being absent the past two or three years.
This is the time of year when I get very lazy when it comes to taking care of my garden. In September, I let the weeds grow and don’t bother to spray. Although most garden experts say now is when weeds really need to be removed, before they flower and set seed, I figure that the weed-seed bank in my garden is so full, I don’t worry about adding a few million more.
Some of the woodchip mulch I applied this summer to conserve moisture has floated away and redistributed itself outside the fence, much like the gravel on my road has been relocated a half mile away. Replacing that mulch is another chore I will postpone.
I did pinch the tips of my Brussel’s sprout plants since they are quite tall, but showing little lateral bud development. A raccoon ate my sweet corn when I was out of town, reminding me why I generally don’t grow sweet corn.
If it stays warm and frost free until mid-November, I may even harvest a few tomatoes from the plants I put in, in late July! The beets I planted back on Aug. 25 have sprouted and it looks like I may get a fall crop. I should pull out the spent bean plants and harvest carrots, but that too, will wait.
There is still time to plant grass seed and I do plan to try out the mini clover seed that the company sent to me. One nice thing about writing a newspaper garden column is that sometimes companies send me free stuff to trial!
If the clover seeding works, I will surely promote it as an alternative to lawn grasses. The rain and cool weather have allowed most lawns to recover and mine needs mowing as well. Maybe next week.
I have learned that glyphosate, the herbicide made famous by Monsanto as “Round Up,” but now available in generic forms, seems to be most effective on poison ivy and other woody brush when applied right now. I have managed to keep poison ivy away from my house and along my road frontage, as well as keeping the invasive Asiatic bittersweet somewhat in check. I know I am fighting a losing battle in the long term when it comes to eradicating this highly invasive weed, but as long as I am able to continue, I will try to keep it at bay.
It’s easy to just throw up one’s hands and surrender, when confronted with large-scale issues such as invasive weeds, climate change, and other planetary problems. After all, Mother Nature will trump all human efforts to control things like carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere when the next Ice Age arrives. A single, massive volcanic eruption anyplace on the planet will cool global temperatures significantly, for years. The flora of upstate New York will look very, very different 100 years from now, regardless of what I do.
Still, I think we puny humans are obliged to do what we can to address these issues with whatever tools we possess. Our tenure as stewards of the earth might be pretty brief in geologic times, but I will try my best to deal with global issues on the most local scale.
In time, my grandkids may wonder why this little piece of property they have inherited looks a bit different, a bit more diverse, than the surrounding land. It will be because Grand Bob, cared.