Almost a week into August already?
Yes.
Sorry about that.
If you would like a nice taste of insanity, come to Martha’s Vineyard in August and spend some time in our teeming public spaces. You’ll be gibbering nonsense and acting oddly in a nanosecond or two.
That’s a promise.
If you do come, and if you do lose touch, you’ll need professional help.
Stop and see us at Wishetwurra Farm. We have an excellent reality-based program to aid those disoriented and addled by this silliest of seasons.
It’s called “Agriochortairotherapy”, or in nonmedical terms, “weeding”.
As always, the first person to sign up for any of our healing programs will be allowed to climb the Herbert Poindexter Memorial Ladder Section, for a special nosebleed-height view of the Farm.
Here’s what you’ll see.
The gate to the garden is getting overgrown by virginia creeper. Asparagus fronds mightily to the right of the board path. Sunflowers surround the greenhouse. Spring crops are gone from this section. Fall’s carrot crop is underway. Celeriac is a dark green streak. boxes cover fall cole crops.
After some teaser rains, July turned into yet another dry month. Our Vermont family, and friends on the mainland, tell us they’ve been having a wet summer. Not so here. Our soaker hose and sprinklers are getting used frequently.
Far right rear is the blueberry cage. Blueberry season is already nearly over, but it was a good year. There are gallons of blue morsels in the freezer. In the foreground, the strawberry patch is being renewed. Dominating the photo is the “three sisters” corn’n’squash’n’beans patch, which looks like it will be a riotous success. That corn is ten feet tall, by the way.
The summer has not been wicked hot. Temperatures have been in the upper seventies and into the eighties during the days. Sixty-six this morning felt almost chilly.
The three sisters mountain range extends across the fram. In front of them is a tired spring coles crops patch. Broccoli sends up a few spears, and we’ve got some big heads of cabbage we’ve got to use or to pass along before it’s too late.
This has been your view of Wishetwurra Farm in midsummer. In the fields, goldenrod is tinging to yellow. We’re sliding back into darkness, and fall will be here (all too) soon.
A big part of gardening at this time of year is remembering to replant as space opens up.
And weeding!
The battle against the bindweed continues. The darn stuff keeps popping up, and if it doesn’t go away, I’m going to ask the President to send in some choppers loaded with Agent Orange.
He’s due to arrive on the island tomorrow, so it would only be a matter of having him stop a moment on his way here to pick up the stuff at the garden center of some nearby Air Force Base PX, and making a small detour — we’re just a few miles from the airport where he’ll be landing.
While he’s here, we’d be happy to offer him an agriochortairotherapy session.
Gratis.
thetompostpile 
If I ever get to Martha’s Vineyard, I hope it will be in August – and you will let me weed. If the peas are all gone, I can subsist on blueberries!
I beg you to reconsider. Coming after Labor Day is far better. Fewer people, the Island people are less likely to be burned out and more likely to be pleasant, the water is still warm….there will still be weeds. And possibly manure to shovel.