Please Lord, Send Some Rain!

This week in the evenings after dinner and coffee with Mike, I've spent a lot of time in the garden, watering.  I have two 50 gallon rain barrels that have been empty for weeks.  I've been using the garden hose to keep my rather ambitious urban garden moist and happy in this urban desert.  The summer heat has encouraged the plants to grow tremendously over the past five or six weeks. Here are a few before (early June) and after (mid-July) shots of the garden.

Baby Sunflowers, squash, peas, and tomatoes
with volunteer marigolds.

Sunflowers and their friends, not so tiny now!

Raised beds, flourishing!

Transplants of eggplant and peppers--back
right corner of raised bed area.

I picked the last of the shelling peas this week and will clear out the snap peas today.  The basil plants were huge, so I trimmed them back and put the lovely stalks in water to use for pesto for dinner.  I fear that if I'd left them in the blistering sun another day they surely would have bolted and flowered.  I also noticed that some of the other herbs could use a trim, so I decided to make some sun tea from chocolate mint, lemon verbena, lavender, raspberry leaf, and strawberry leaf.  The fragrance was intoxicating when I removed the lid in the evening after letting it brew all day on the sunny back steps.  I haven't sipped it just yet, as it was chilling in the fridge over night.

We're expecting a few more dry days with temperatures in the 90s.  The grass, which was so very green in June is now the color of the straw between the raised beds and in the tee-pee garden.  I'm glad we don't need to mow, but it's a little heartbreaking to hear clover and grass crunch under my feet as I haul water to the garden beds throughout the yard.  We shouldn't be surprised.  We often have a drought this time in July.  However, we had a  drought in April or May as well, and I know many areas around the country are suffering.  Water bills will be high.  Food prices will skyrocket.  I take the weather as the Lord sends it, knowing it's a reminder that "all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change" (James 1:17, NAB).  If it is for our benefit, the rains will come and water the earth.  In the meantime, I thank God for the sweet gifts of running water and arms strong enough to carry water to the plants.