Tomato Woes

Noticing a lack of tomatoes? I've had ONE Orange Wellington so far. It was SO GOOD. I mixed some ranch dressing mix into some cottage cheese, spread that on a piece of whole grain toast, and topped it with the creamy Orange Wellington. I immediately wanted another, but--no more tomatoes are even NEAR ripe. The cherry tomato I found the next day was not enough for another one of my treats.

What's the deal?

The nights have been too hot. You have to have the right mix of temperature and humidity for the pollen to "stick" right. Here we are already very dry, so we need temperatures at night be below about 70 degrees. Where my folks live, it often doesn't get below 85 at night, but their humidity is higher so it balances out. Well, ya know, most of the time.

But we have a break in the hot weather and the robust tomato plants will soon start catching up on production.

NOTE: I was going to take a picture of my beautiful Orange Wellington to share with you, but I was more interested in eating it. I thought maybe I could take a picture of another the next day. :( Here's hoping the next one is not too far away. At least I've been picking plenty of okra to keep me happy. And GEE WHIZ my yellow squash is very productive. It tastes better than the zucchini so I'm happy.

Fighting Morning Glory, Two by Two

These horrible weeds seem to drink the Roundup. Spraying WeedBGone (2-4-D) just makes them mad. But they have no defense against the two together. Mix yourself some WeedBGone and Roundup in a sprayer. Or if that is too much hassle, spray the WeedBGone first, then lightly spray the Roundup. In about a week, the Morning Glory will be dead as a doornail.

This handful I have in the picture was in my ice plant. I gathered all the vines and laid them on a piece of newspaper while I sprayed.

It was nice to hear the dry vines crinkle in my hand today.

Joy.

Of course, this cocktail will kill everything else, too. So if it's in your grass, you'll need to protect the grass nearby while you spray. Gather up all the vines of the morning glory and surround them with a plastic cup that you have cut the bottom off of. If you cut down the side of the cup you can more tightly "cone" the cup around the weed. Spray, then move on to the next weed.

Here I am working on the shamrocks in my iceplant. Oh. How. I. Hate. Them.

It will take a while. Use multiple cups so you can more easily see where you've already sprayed and you won't miss spots.

It is a lot of work, but it will WORK.

Fall Garden is coming.

I'm sorry, I'm a little behind in keeping this schedule updated. You should spray your birch and stone fruit trees RIGHT NOW (July 1) for borers. And keep the spray handy for spraying again on August 1. 

More fun than that: seed some lettuce indoors to transplant in the garden for harvest in the fall. This lettuce will be sweeter and last longer than the spring garden because the temperatures will start to be cooler. At least that is was we *normally* expect, but as we have seen lately, "normal" is a little abnormal.

You may have some spots in your garden getting freed up from crops that are finishing up their peak season. Find some fall crops to stick in there: lettuce, carrots, broccoli (65-80 day varieties), cauliflower, cabbage, radishes, turnips, pole beans. But seriously, those pole beans are a mess. I came in looking like I fought in a war whenever I tried to pick them. I prefer the bush beans.

Give your annual flowers a little sprinkling of fertilizer. In fact, I think I'm going to give the garden a dose, too. 

My youngest is my best gardener so far! She helped me pick all the flowers for the children's garden and the playhouse. She even knows how to gently pull the plant from the package and separate the roots before transplanting. She waters them every day without fail and loves to see new blooms. In fact SHE noticed a spot that didn't get much sun and suggest we plant some impatiens there. I was so proud! 

My raspberries are starting to produce a LOT of berries. I love to pick them fresh and have them on my cereal. Yes, breakfast in the garden is always the best way to start my day!