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It's 86-89 F (30-31.6 C) in Crestline this week and I am literally dripping with sweat.
I rushed about gardening this morning as everything was wilting and nearly keeled over. I literally had to sit down in the shade and swill Gatorade. I already knew this from having lived my entire life in hot places, but it's salutary to be reminded of exactly how fast heat danger can sneak up on you. (I'm totally fine now, but I recognized the signs and remedied them immediately. If I'd decided to just finish watering, I might not be fine.)
On the plus side of this heat, I have CORN! I would share pics but they are currently covered in hardware cloth. That was probably the unwise in-sun exertion, but all these darling sprouts had popped up when I was fully expecting nothing to germinate at all, so I rushed to protect them. I have never grown corn before, so this should be fun.
Current state of garden:
Potatoes: Giant thriving jungle.
Tomatoes: Nibbled by bugs, but producing.
Bell peppers: Ditto.
Peas: Growing, but I'm in the usual battle of too much heat/dryness means wilting but too much shade/water means powdery mildew.
Cherries: All eaten by squirrels.
Morning glories: Two out of FORTY pre-sprouted seeds survived. One has a teeny bud! Well, now I know where to plant them.
Shallots: Thriving.
Rainbow chard: Died.
Blueberries: One very healthy bush with a handful of sloooowly ripening berries. I will put in more bushes later, as they grow beautifully but one bush doesn't produce much.
Raspberries: Marginal. Only one of three bushes is producing at all, and bugs are getting most of them. I think I need way more bushes to make a go of it.
Thimbleberries: Enormous thriving bank of them.
Blackberries: Even more enormous thriving bank of them, some just starting to redden.
Salal berries: One died, one marginal.
Salmonberry: Healthy, but no berries yet.
Saplings I planted last year (ginkgo, scarlet oak, birch stand, Bartlett pear, Satsuma plum): Every single one is doing great.
How does your garden grow?
I rushed about gardening this morning as everything was wilting and nearly keeled over. I literally had to sit down in the shade and swill Gatorade. I already knew this from having lived my entire life in hot places, but it's salutary to be reminded of exactly how fast heat danger can sneak up on you. (I'm totally fine now, but I recognized the signs and remedied them immediately. If I'd decided to just finish watering, I might not be fine.)
On the plus side of this heat, I have CORN! I would share pics but they are currently covered in hardware cloth. That was probably the unwise in-sun exertion, but all these darling sprouts had popped up when I was fully expecting nothing to germinate at all, so I rushed to protect them. I have never grown corn before, so this should be fun.
Current state of garden:
Potatoes: Giant thriving jungle.
Tomatoes: Nibbled by bugs, but producing.
Bell peppers: Ditto.
Peas: Growing, but I'm in the usual battle of too much heat/dryness means wilting but too much shade/water means powdery mildew.
Cherries: All eaten by squirrels.
Morning glories: Two out of FORTY pre-sprouted seeds survived. One has a teeny bud! Well, now I know where to plant them.
Shallots: Thriving.
Rainbow chard: Died.
Blueberries: One very healthy bush with a handful of sloooowly ripening berries. I will put in more bushes later, as they grow beautifully but one bush doesn't produce much.
Raspberries: Marginal. Only one of three bushes is producing at all, and bugs are getting most of them. I think I need way more bushes to make a go of it.
Thimbleberries: Enormous thriving bank of them.
Blackberries: Even more enormous thriving bank of them, some just starting to redden.
Salal berries: One died, one marginal.
Salmonberry: Healthy, but no berries yet.
Saplings I planted last year (ginkgo, scarlet oak, birch stand, Bartlett pear, Satsuma plum): Every single one is doing great.
How does your garden grow?
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Tomatoes are ripening, my chard and collards are very enthusiastic, and I have no idea about the onions. My eggplant is flowering.
I got a handful of black raspberries and currants before the birds did, but they got the rest.
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Can't grow food here as the rats would eat it all. But they hate geraniums and roses, so I've lots of those.
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Most of my crops didn't like the 100 degree streak we had a couple of weeks ago in the Midwest, so things are finally bouncing back from that. I've got peppers and tomatoes coming up nicely, with a few cherry tomatoes ripening every day; the squash and cukes are looking healthy (knock on wood - last year they all died from borers and beetles); my long beans need another couple weeks to get nice and viney; and hopefully all my late start flowers make it to blooming.
May the weather be with us!
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(We did not get things together to plant anything else this year. Which means no tomatoes, no corn, no sunflowers, alas. Gee, thanks, Covid.)
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Our raspberries, planted a couple of autumns ago, are starting to spread around nicely. Fruit yield is not that much though; quite a lot of the berries just dried up.
Blueberries are looking promising and starting to ripen. I'd like to get another blueberry bush and clear the space to plant it, and I'd also like blackberries, but those are projects for another year.
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One of the hills I've been hiking up for exercise has some kind of berry bush – I suspect blackberries – poking onto the path from a private property, and the berries on it are thumbnail-sized and ripening. I also got some lovely strawberries from the big farmers' market on Sunday.
Though speaking of Gatorade and hydration (as someone who dehydrates at the drop of a hat, you have my sympathies), have you tried the stuff by Skratch labs? I have yet to try them out because I'm trying to drink down my weirdly large stock of Nuun stuff before I buy more things to clutter my cupboards, but
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I killed an air plant once. Houseplants are not my thing.
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Been there, done that!
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My ugly buckets are doing amazingly - the lettuce is overflowing, the beans are wild up the trellis, the cucumber has a few tiny starts and GIANT leaves, the zucchini is covered with squash, and the peppers have dozens of little pepperlings. The herbs are all giant, and the tomatoes have probably thirty flowers and green starts (the key to these was clearly neglect and knocking them over). I'm puzzled that my geranium have flourished and put out fuzzy, dinner-plate-sized leaves, but not a single flower. Both my rosebushes came back from roots, the rhubarb might make a pie, and my iris actually bloomed.
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The snapdragons, whether planted or from bee-bred seed, are past the peak of the first blooming, the coneflowers are out in glory to the delight of bumblebees, the bee balm is scenting the air, moss roses and million bells and petunias are sprawling all over. Dwarf morning glory is being a bit slow to grow. Last pansies are perishing.
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Next year I would like to do some more planting in the backyard, if I can convince the association to let me put in a raised bed. (I don't think it will be a hard sell.)
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We are starting to get cherry tomatoes, and the eggplants are almost ripe.
That's in our garden. The farmer's market is getting in a bunch more things, but we have very limited sunlit space here because the entire back is wooded, which I love, but which does interfere with a large number of food crops.
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My gardening achievements for the year are mowing the lawn once, and cutting the front hedge. And that's it.
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Our hollyhocks have increased to 3, though in various shades of pink rather than the brilliant red of last year.
Zucchini...sad. i planted the whole packet of seeds, 2 came up and one of those now seems dead of drought.
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As you know, I got a grant to plant natives and I've been very thrilled by how quickly they seem to be attracting pollinators. BUT, it's been tough to keep them all watered and healthy in this unrelenting heat. Some of them are very droopy and unhappy. I spend so much time watching over these things that any droop, however temporary makes me SAD.
Plus the stupid delivery guys trampled on my joe pie weed. Boo.
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