Scorched Earth

This summer has been painful to behold. On my only two days of vacation this past summer, I bathed in a kettle pond on Cape Cod. The water was eerily low, the shoreline exposed far beyond any reaches of the past decade…

The heatwave this summer brought 100F days. Grass is burned. Thin soil toasted any plants that were robust in last year’s rain. It’s been blazing, with some days of feeling sick from the heat.

Now that the season has turned to late summer-early fall, it is time to improve soil.

Adding leaf mould and compost to build moisture retention capabilities will be crucial. Ensuring that soils won’t become waterlogged, should we encounter another season like last year’s. (Remember all that rain?)

Careful not to use garden amendments with high amounts of horse manure. If it isn’t kept sufficiently moist, it’ll burn plants - particularly in clay soil…

Here is a flower I saw growing below the water line at one of the kettle ponds at Nickerson State Park.