Getting through the heat and beginning the harvest

July 31, 2006

I have spent more time wearing my bookseller hat and less time in my sunbonnet and gardening gloves since my last post. That means sometimes I've had to choose between gardening and blogging, and, of course, I chose gardening.

Since the last post I fed my plants that were beginning to look starved or starting to bloom, some fish emulsion. It didn't help the peppers much, but it seemed to help everything else. I picked my first tomatoes today. I've been picking a cucumber about every three days for the past ten days. I've harvested a couple of zucchini and a few small bell peppers. The tomato vines are loaded and it looks they will be getting more and more ripe ones every day. Cucumbers are loaded with blossoms and little cukes. So over all, the
veggies are doing well.

Wish I could say the same for my small herb bed beyond my kitchen window . (Pictured above.) The gophers think it's for them. I've lost two calendulas, my marjorem, and both yarrow plants. Something is eating the sorrel above ground and its almost gone. (Discovered next day it was gophers, and now it's gone, too.) And today my prized lambs ear plant looked wilted and almost dead. (See gray blob hanging over rocks a bit at front of picture.) And just two days ago I had been admiring it and thinking of how well it was doing and how I would be dividing it into more plants in the fall. I gave it a lot of water this morning and hope it revives. The picture was taken the morning after I wrote this, and it has revived a little . I'd think the gopher had gone after it, but it wasn't loose. I'd think it was our triple digit heat that we've had almost every day for two weeks, but it was a bit cooler today and yesterday. And I can't believe that one day without watering would wilt it that much. Time will tell. Maybe the gopher just nibbled a bit of it so far. (Compare the picture above to the same bed on May 20, bottom picture on May 20th blog, below. )

I finished planting the irises I was given last week since it was a bit cooler today. I spread them in every one of my beds to see where they will do the best. And that way if a gohper should go on a rampage, it won't get all of them. Though I understand that they are poison, so I wouldn't mind if a gopher did eat them.

It's time to start broccoli, and I have some seeds. It's time to think about what else I want to plant for the fall garden. It's just so hot this summer that I'm not sure I could keep the seeds moist enough outside. So much to do. So little time.