All better but still waiting.

 The tomato plant needed some more pruning because the cage can't hold the top of it well in the soft soil. I noticed it when I went out to water yesterday but was more focused on getting water in the soil than pruning it up. The poor marigold seedlings didn't survive but I wasn't counting on them much but had hopes.

Before

After

When I got to the garden it was seriously leaning toward the entrance (away from me in the second picture). By the time I took the picture I had already taken three branches off. Making sure there were few or old flowers on that wouldn't be productive.

So selective pruning to keep it upright and another reason why I tell people to get a big cage and plan on stakes for support. The zucchini is hanging in there, took a few leaves off, lower old ones that were dying and one or two that were blocking flowers for pollinators. I saw one housefly on a leaf. That isn't a pollinator.

Looking good.

 

I took all the pruned stems and leaves and threw them in a pile to the left of the picture. I didn't want to carry them all the way to the other side of the complex to throw them into the dumpster. So a sort of compost pile is starting. See how dry and dusty the ground is? That will be a mud slurry if we should ever get any rain this winter. Going to need either mud boots or ignore the garden over the winter (not likely).  I also encountered another pest the other day, mealy bug on the tomato. I double checked it by squishing it and yes it was. I discovered another one crawling on the ground and dealt with that as well.

Little white thing.

 

The reason why I was so adamant about removing them is they can multiply almost as fast as aphids and are harder to get rid of. That white coating is waxy which means that most pesticides just roll right off. They usually attack plants that are stressed out from too much water but they can really show up any time on anything. I suspect this one on the ground fell off the bush as I was moving it around. But given the disaster of weeds on the other bed, would not be surprised if they were coming from there or the lemon bush. I have a video of it but for some reason can't upload that video to here. Oh well.

Surface root being shaved

Just wanted to share this, backing up what I mentioned before about trees in lawns. That is a root from a sycamore that has been run over with the lawn mower for years. Not bothering the tree really but it shouldn't be happening. Cool pattern but one of those things that shows the damage that can happen both to the tree and the mower. Also a trip hazard for anyone walking around.

Unknown but familiar

I don't remember what this bug is and don't have my handy dandy bug book anymore. They are a piercing type bug, possibly predatory and that may be a male and female. See how many unknowns are in that sentence? There is a wonderful website called What's That Bug? Where you can upload pictures and there are both professional and amateur entomologists that will identify it and of course now there is an app for that and like the plant ID app it has a free trial otherwise you have to pay and frankly, not going to do that. So couldn't find any website that was easy to upload a photo, tried it on my phone but the 'Files' folder only went back so far. When I get it identified I will update.

So I have an instagram account #greendinigardenguru to try and get more followers here and there. Following other nurseries and places as well. Get this whole 'influencer' thing going, still refuse to take videos of myself and find it embarrassing to ask my guy Jon to do it. He's a dear, love him forever but he's not that handy with camera stuff.

Anyway, hoping to have more things to talk about soon. Summer is kind of a slow time for gardening due to plants are growing and some harvesting depending on your area and when you started planting. For San Diego,  spring and fall are busy times since our warm weather lasts all the way to October sometimes, though the evenings do start to cool down by then. 

As I am typing I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye on the fence outside... forgive the quality of the photo due to being four feet from the window and another twenty from the fence.

Meester Leezard!

Rocky has a thing for chasing them so I'm glad he wasn't sitting in the window or he'd go running for the door to try and go catch it. That's a good size lizard too,fence boards are six inches wide and that is a six foot fence so nice adult, possibly a Fence Lizard or what I call a 'Blue Throat' Lizard. Having grown up with lizards I know the difference between an Alligator Lizard and a Fence Lizard.

Oh speaking of... I mentioned properly naming/spelling plants previously. You'll see that once in a while I don't capitalize names, because I'm lazy. But when dealing with the common name for a plant or animal it's either or. If you want to be professional first and second name capitalized always. When giving the botanical/scientific name it is: First second 'Species/Variety' 'Common Name' So if I wanted to get all hoity toity about my tomato plant it would be: Solanum lycopersicum, 'Better Boy'. So sometimes people would come in and say they are looking for a yello flower. So okay that's like aliens coming to earth and asking where are your dogs? I have to ask almost twenty questions to get what they are actually looking for.

They want to sound intelligent and ask just the first scientific name and I have to tell them 'It's like going into a crowd and asking for James'. You are looking specifically for James Smith, which you aren't specifying and if you don't know the last name you are going to be looking for quite some time. Possibly realizing that James Smith isn't here and you have to look somewhere else.

Juniper, yes that's a bit family which one? Oh the tall tree type. Okay you want a tall narrow one or bushy one, 'oh you're not going to help me where are they?'. come to find out they wanted a groundcover type that we didn't have. So, do your homework before you go to look for plants or better yet, call first if you are going to an actual large nursery. I did it millions of times, answering the phone, turns into a 'stock check' to run out to the yard and find out if we have what they're looking for. It's what they are there for. This is one of the reasons why smaller nurseries and garden stores are a cut above Big Box places. You want wide variety but not the cost, you are out of luck. Ain't gonna happen. 

Big Box stores have a set way of displaying plants as per 'corporate', certain varieties are always there and others disappear in a week possibly a few days. They are at the mercy of the vendors swapping out product for the smaller plants and are sometimes stuck with plants that won't sell if they get them from a larger supplier. It is very very difficult to call a chain store to ask if they have something. Most of the time you aren't getting a person who knows the plant you're looking for nor do they have the time to run outside to check. A lot of times the vendors move the plants around so it was in one spot yesterday but they had to make room for more plants and move it somewhere completely different and therefore, 'we don't have that' is a common answer. Only to find it the next day on another table.

So just bite the bullet and make sure you know what you're looking for and who has it. Make sure, as I've mentioned before, it's the right plant for your spot and climate.

My advice boils down to five or six basic things and I tend to repeat them because different situations seem to be unrelated but it all funnels back down to a handful of things.

How big, how wide, how much water, how much sun.