Blast Furnace Gardening

The garden is not doing too well. Starting about 2 weeks ago, we had 9 days in a row over 110. Considering that an average summer only has 10 days over 110, that was a brutal start to the hot season. Meanwhile, our (NEW!) air conditioner was having problems. It kept over-heating and shutting down for 4 hours at a time. The inside temp would rise to about 90 and we did not feel up to going outside and weren't sure what to do anyway. In retrospect, I probably should have at least hosed everything down in the morning and late evening. I'm a little worried about the peach trees, they are awfully yellow. The rest of the new trees seem OK. The citrus are a bit scorched but better than they used to be before creating the orchard area with all the mulch and inline irrigation.

The melons are great. The honeydew was one of the best and sweetest I've ever eaten. Here's the latest harvest - the sunflowers are from the CSA, not my garden. Next year I do think I'll plant sunflowers. The picture shows the first honeydew, the second watermelon and the third cantaloupe, as well as a few last tomatoes. The fuzzy, dewy texture of the newly picked plants, especially the okra and the melons, is just amazing. For the record, we picked the first melons about a week ago.

A lot of plants have died. All the cucumbers, most of the tomatoes and the peppers except those in deep shade.
The fig tree may not make it.

Heat

Well it was hot before but now it's really hot. I went outside at 5 AM yesterday and again today and it was already quite warm outside. Some of the new trees, especially the peach trees, seem to be yellowing a bit, which I find alarming. This morning I went out early and added extra water with a hose. Just now I noticed that one of the huge melon plants, the one on the east side, is wilting. I hope it rebounds tonight. I'm wilting too!

Sorry I haven't uploaded any pictures recently. It's not hard to do but I have to look up the process each time and now I have mis-placed the cable. Soon.

Birthday Girl and Garden

Notice the new Indian lightweight clothes - very cool in this heat.

Here's one of the watermelons:

Zucchini, and the sea of melons where the watermelon picture was taken is behind the raised planter.


The harvest - tomatoes, zucchini, lemon cukes, one eggplant, the first peppers, baby squash.

My Share

I've joined a CSA. If you think that means we must have an awful lot of veggies - ours plus the CSA's - well, you're right. But it's fun. The CSA share includes a dozen eggs (from some very happy chickens) and a big bunch of flowers, which I seldom buy for myself. It's educational to get Maya's Farm's veggies and compare to mine. Her cucumbers look just like mine but hers are delicious and mine are bitter. In fact, I pulled out two huge cucumber plants and just left the lemon cucumber. It's great, and the skins of the cucumbers are not tough. Stella told me that the secret is to pick before they actually turn yellow.

Maya's share also includes a big bunch of Italian parsley and micro-arugula or baby lettuce. She included some really big squash and last week I made stuffed squash, filled with a Greek meat sauce (like you make for moussaka) and topped with cheese. I'd never made stuffed squash before.

I haven't written much because I've been sick and not had much energy. Also I've had to put in extra hours at work so that I can get really for a longish leave of absence starting mid July.

But the garden is doing great. It's hot now but still cool in the mornings. The plants in pots in the shade are doing especially well. The melons are amazing. I'm going to have to read up on how to know when they are ripe. I think I remember that the undertone turns yellow/gold and the fruit separates easily from the vine. I can now see which ones are watermelon and which are cantaloupe. The watermelon plants have deeply divided leaves. I have several varieties each of cantaloupe and watermelon. I think that the honeydew have not fruited yet, but I planted them later. Next year I'll have to start melons from seed to get more varieties. I did start some this year but I started them in the ground and they grew well, then wilted. I could start them in pots and let them get bigger before transplanting.

I have pictures and plan to come back and update these recent posts soon. It takes a while to upload the pics.

Melons

Today I went out in the garden and noticed lots of melons. They must have been there before since one was about 6 inches! I had to detach one melon plant from a nectarine tree. It was climbing it rapidly.Meanwhile we've been eating the zucchini and eggplants and herbs from the garden - and a few tomatoes. I'm not too fond of the cucumbers but the cucumber plants are very happy.


The rose recovered from having half it's limbs and foliage removed. The new leaves seem to be disease free, as I hoped. And the flowers are fragrant. I do love my Double Delights.


Figs are finally developing: