So I left for awhile

The area is irrigated because it's soon to be
another block of corn.  All that water and no
shade makes for a weed invasion!

I took off to the mountains to get away for awhile, catch up on some work and get some hiking in.  My family has a house up there and I've set it up with a workstation, nice monitor and can basically do what I do "down the hill" just as effectively up there.  With the added bonus that I'm not in suburban hell.  I returned this past Saturday evening which means my garden was without a captain for 11 days.
When I left I really didn't care too terribly much what happened to the garden, I was (and am still) pissed about the tomato failure.  I'm not losing sleep over it but it did take a good portion of the wind out of my sails - maybe some time away was just what I needed?

blossom end rot - about 50% of current toms' suffer from it
I'm assuming it's from the heat spell, but it can be caused by
a few different things

Upon returning I encountered pretty much what I expected; still living but not thriving plants, tomatoes that look like shit, arugula that bolted, red orach that continues to be devasted by pests, corn doing pretty good (happy if you give it water!) and my good little beans with their work finished, waiting to die.  So my sprinklers work.  The yard looked terrible with sick or dead plants and weeds everywhere, I knew that cleaning things up would be a good start and I planned on doing just that on Sunday.

stupid arugula, hate you...

Sunday came and the yard was cleaned up, dead and very sick plants pulled.  I watered everything real good and gave my compost operation some much needed attention.  Didn't spend the full day, I didn't have the heart for it and ended up wrapping after about 5 hours of work.

big zucchini ≠ good zucchini
This was chopped and composted

much better

Tonight I was surprised (should I still be??) to find the beds dry!  I watered HEAVILY yesterday morning, I mean I really went for it and soaked the beds but they are dry, dry, dry.  I dug down about 8" and dry.  This actually gives me a little buzz because maybe, just maybe the terrible performance of the crops are due to the chronic under watering?  Maybe the soil composition in the beds is just incapable of storing water?  If you've followed this blog at all you know what a schizo I am about watering ("I over water!" "No, I'm under watering!" "mulch is good" "No, mulch is bad and rots the stems!!") 

bolted arugula gone - I like dirt more than 
sick or bolting plants

Tomorrow I plan to get scientific on it's ass, here's the plan:

1. Water HEAVYILY in the early AM (5ish)
2. Take core sample to determine water penetration depth (2 or 3 sample should suffice)
3. Every hour I will take a core sample to a depth of 8" and track the progression down (if any) as well as the drying

If I can prove that this soil just won't hold water then I can begin to take steps to correct the problem.  See, I just 180'ed in a single blog post!