Saturday, August 18, 2012

Rain!!!

Just over 1 1/4 inch this beautiful Sabbath morning! The peppers, sweet potatoes, and squash love it. So do the sunflowers, but it may be too little, too late for the tomatoes.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Dying

That's what my garden is trying to do.  Nothing is blooming, much  less producing.  Well, the blister bugs seem to be producing quite well.  Since nothing is blooming right now I went ahead and used some Sevin to get rid of the blister bugs.  They rank right up there with ticks and snakes.  I guess at least snakes serve a purpose.  On that note, they aren't serving much of a purpose around here right now.  Jeff stepped out the front door last night and a rat ran across his feet.  Elijah's golf club took over the role of the snake.  Snakes, ticks, rats, blister bugs:  pretty much in that order.

As far as the garden goes, I pulled up the black-eyed peas and cantaloupe last week.  My third round of squash plants are growing fine this time and the nasturtium does seem to be keeping the squash bugs at bay.  I've seen a few, but nothing like earlier in the summer.  The tomatoes are not taking the heat very well, or it may just be that we just discovered our watering system is not working right.  I have been hand watering for the past week.  Even with what little is left, that takes about 30 minutes.  What is left?  Tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, and Swiss chard.  I would like to start some fall plants but it is waaay too hot to do that.  It was 115 yesterday and should get to over 110 today.  No rain in at least a month and the highs have not dropped below 100 since July 17 (not below 105 for the last week).  This week is hotter than it was the same week last year, but we haven't had the same overall heat for the summer.  I don't think we will break the 63 days of 100 degrees this year, but we should get close to half that.