Finally settled down a bit

 It's been a hectic week for sure and especially frustrating but have not ignored the garden. It's warming up now, for the next few days, so watering happened and other things.

Today is a lot lighter colored sky,top one was taken yesterday on my ipad. Still clear and breezy though, almost windy. Temps are going to get into the low to mid 70's so I'm wearing shorts since my long pants are too tight (that's another issue that happened).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day before yesterday went out to the garden and realized the little tomato seedling was laying over. Moved it around it was cut off at the base. Much too young to survive on it's own in the wild and suffered for it. Oh well. It was an experiment this year growing them in soil instead of the peat pellets that I don't have. Will have to make sure and get more of those, they worked perfectly for almost everything I planted in them.

I also trimmed back a few of the front hanging branches and once again picked another handful of flowers. Will be taking as many tomorrow for  a gift for my daughter. They will be blooming for the next few weeks, which is awesome and also not good because technically needed to have tomatoes in the ground by now. Going to be a late season this year.

Strawberry is bouncing back, that'll need a bigger pot soon, there are peppers coming up yay! Poblanos finally and the jalapeños. I don't see anything but the purple tomatillos in the other container and still nothing from the peppers in the other long container.  Peppers, no matter the type want warm weather for sprouting. Tomatoes too but they are more forgiving.

 Hopefully will have fresh from the garden salsa this year! Someone in the garden group asked about tomatillos as they had a hard time getting them to grow, someone chimed in they had no problems, they needed heat and the plants they had, both purple and green were huge plants. Ohboy. Definitely going in the west bed unless I want to put in two tomatoes and a tomatillo between them on the trellis. That would be an incredible plant competition. I need more room!!! (insert emotional crying emoji I don't have).

 

And in other developments.... a freaking potato is breaking the surface again! I  might have to dig down, break the sprout and then pour vinegar and salt on it to kill the potato. Who'd have thought? It's way off season for them and it wouldn't be able to develop very well given how deep it probably is.

Finally was able to get over to the epi and it was already wilting. There are at least three others that will be blooming very soon, likely in a day or two. Will make a point for sure to get fresh pictures of them.The two pink roses are still blooming, yellow Dutch Iris are out in force, not much else in the way of flowers in the various gardens. 

The chives are ...just wow, that is such a prolific plant! The one in the shade is still hanging in there but that's fine, oregano hasn't died and the pepper is going... tempted to pull that out but it would be noticed by Dolores and it was a gift so, has to stay.

And that's it for today! 

 

Welll, it did rain overnight! Today is gorgeous!

 Today is the kind of weather that I remember from visiting Lake Tahoe (minus the pine smell). Windy, crisp, clear air and partly cloudy skies. However much rain fell it wasn't enough to stick around for very long. Since I watered yesterday the beds were no indication of how much water fell from the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Absolutely refreshing weather that tells you that the world goes on and walk gratefully and breathe deeply. Not too many pictures today since I was interrupted by one of the other ladies (let's call her Mary) who was talking with someone else through their door so I picked some more sweet peas and gave them out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pink rose on the left is the Tiffany and the one on the right is another pink one. Still beautiful and smell wonderful. First flower of the epi has opened, I couldn't get any closer due to seeing it while walking Rocky. Will try and get out there before it gets too dark and get another picture. It's huge though! I know from scale that it's bigger than my hand spread!

And on to my garden, as I said I was interrupted with someone who just wanted to see the garden so I was explaining what was who's and what they were. Those are definitely all tomatillos but that's okay, when they get big enough I'll repot and offer them up for eggs or something else for trade. I can only use maybe two in what space I have. The strawberry is bouncing back nicely and the tomato seedling I planted is still standing, although shaded by the sweet peas. When I dug it out of the container it had one long root only about inch and a half long so I wasn't going to hold out any hope for it surviving. I think I planted the squash a bit too far back. Might have to move it even though it seems to be in the center.

I didn't see anymore damage on the cauliflower plants from caterpillars and I nipped off several chive leaves and a flower (by accident) to bring upstairs. I noticed one of the leaves on the unknown onion was kind of broken so I nipped that off during my walk with Rocky and nibbled on it. Most definitely onion, possibly white so those two in the bed are from the mystery onion. Hoping those last long enough to harvest by end of summer. The larger carrot in the west bed still doesn't look dark enough orange to harvest so that's staying put and obviously the one in the raised bed is nowhere near big enough.

That's it for today. Short post compared to the other day but at least the weather is amazing. Sweater/windbreaker weather for sure.

Making up for ho hum today, flowers and more flowers!

 Weather is still overcast surprisingly, breezy/windy so maybe that's going to change. In the mid to high 60's today and tomororw but clearing Monday and Tuesday then back to partly cloudy, so there you go. May Grey is officially here.

The rose bush on my walk is exploding with flowers again. I've been taking a different direction on my walks until yesterday so haven't been able to see them. Still have no clue what they are but doesn't matter because they're still pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still getting handfuls of flowers and the cilantro of course is going off but as soon as the first seed head forms I'm pulling it and adding it to the compost. Been doing that with the sweetpeas all along. 

Everything looking good for the most part and most of those seedlings in the upper right picture are tomatillos. Peppers are just being slow pokes for sure. That tomato container...... all of those are looking so sickly I don't know what to do. I think there's at least one pepper coming up and  I made a decision to test something. Oh, and forgot to mention I planted the squash yesterday.

I decided to take the tallest but most yellow tomato seedling and transplant it to the corner, but first, I had to water. Once again used the soaker setting, spray, mist, everything and thought I had gotten all the corners and edges. Nope. The front and center of the raised bed were just fine, and despite soaking the back area it was still bone dry about a half inch down. Had already put the hose away and got it back again to soak and same thing happened. I decided to just take soil that was really wet and mix it all together. Transplanted tomato is that little yellowish two leaf thing in front of the trellis.

So got everything all mixed together and while I still had the hose out I sprayed the logs for the lizards, but didn't see there was a lizard out sunning until it moved when it got sprayed. I think they know I'm okay but still scatter when I move too close. I appeared to ignore it for the rest of my puttering in the garden and it stayed in that spot to dry out and warm up. 

Cabbage worms are already on the cauliflower. That leaf was one of the lower, older ones so I took it to the compost pile. I'll check the plant again tomorrow for anymore damage, not likely there's only one on that plant.

And finally, (in reverse order) I noticed a bud ready to open on the epi while walking Rocky today, but I was in a hurry to get him inside as I had food cooking. A little skipper butterfly was flitting around when I got to the garden this morning and was able to get a shot of it. I had a close up shot but it was too grainy so deleted that one. Still good to see a butterfly there but it's a bit late for flowers on the jade. Another reason to keep the cilantro flowers.

I got my new phone and am being extremely cautious and careful when out in the garden and everywhere else until I get a new case for it. 

Hmm, looks almost like it's going to sprinkle a bit outside.