Today is a good day to have a good day.

Brief funk is gone for the time being for various reasons getting a new purpose to my free time and...I have a zucchini!

Purple-Girl   Red-Boy

 

Glad I am finally able to show what it looks like. One of many flowers so have to hope more are on the way. Notice also that at that stage the flower is barely even coloring yet. If it grows as fast as I remember I'll have a pickable fruit in about a week. Seriously. 

I got two more peppers off the jalapeño still smaller than market size but don't dare leave them on much longer. The plant is just fine by the way showing no signs of the trauma of yesterday after a good watering. Soil is still very damp so will water tomorrow.

I trimmed some of the lower leaves off the zucchini but since I don't have proper support for it I might just let it go as a bush.

 

Getting huge!

There are dozens of flowers

 Tomato plant could not be happier other than busting with fruit. I might have to get a stake to hold it up in the soft soil due to it leaning from the weight of all the branches.

Possibly I have two marigold seeds coming up?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is why I keep track of what weed seedlings look like if I plant seeds. It could be a spurge but then the leaves are wrong so will wait and see. If they are marigolds when they get bigger I'll transplant them. Not surprised where they're coming up, the one on the left is about where I threw the seeds, the one on the right as you can see is near the tag for the pepper. About where the water runoff went.

Nerium oleander

This is a prolific and beautiful bloomer, and yes it is an oleander. I remember when we moved in admiring how pretty it was. 'EEEK IT'S POISONOUS!!' Only if you eat it.  Give me a break, I had a house that had three oleander bushes on the fence, I raised three kids and two dogs in that house and no one got sick. If my girls went out and picked up the flowers off the ground I told them not to put their fingers in their mouth and wash their hands when they're done. Oleanders as some people have seen were planted in freeway medians because they are so resilient and drought tolerant, create a great screen and you can just leave them alone and they'll flourish (see exhibit A above)'

Unfortunately in the last ten or so years a disease has been attacking them carried by a sucking insect. It's called Oleander Scorch and looks like partially burned leaves but this is more like malaria for plants. Because it's a bacterial disease it's difficult to treat and cure. It gets into the system of the plant and kills each branch to the ground. The new branches and stems seem fine and a lot of people think they have a new plant that is going to be okay. The bush could die after first symptoms appear anywhere from 3-5 years. This is why you see some stretches of bushes on the freeway dying or being removed altogether.

Meanwhile in other news,

A for effort, C for execution.

 

A unique and creative way to water that saves time. Two oscillating sprinklers hooked up to hoses and attached to the overhead frame.  Unfortunately whoever did this didn't realize they could have done this with one sprinkler not two. There are tables of plants on either side of the pole, one oscillating sprinkler could have covered both sides. As a result water was being sprayed onto the pavement on the right side. It gets fiendishly hot in this area so it also serves to cool things down I suppose. I had the wrong shoes on and there was water running liberally on the pavement and couldn't walk around as much as I wanted.

Went to the big box garden store to see if they had any beans already growing and they didn't I then stopped and thought..I really don't eat beans. I'll eat peas, but beans not so much, unless they are kidney or pinto beans for cooking. Green beans, not so much. I don't have the room or supplies for growing a pole bean since if I planted it where I threw the marigolds, it would shade the other two plants. So will have to wait until fall/winter to plant peas, radish and carrots. And of course till in more compost and fertilizer, maybe even some high nitrogen type. I will NOT resort to using MG because that is a fast fix and not healthy for the soil in the long run. Not using manure either and speaking of that, I looked at the ingredients for two products at the store again to compare the ingredients. Short memory and all that.

Kellog's Amend

MG Performance In Ground Soil

 

The fertilizer component is just from what is in it, nothing added and it is miniscule compared to what plants actually need. I only just now noticed that there is a not on the Kellog's for the weight! All these years, I have a rough comfortable lifting weight of about 40 lbs. The product has a dry weight of 36 pounds, and the MG is 30 lbs. I'll be dipped. 

I noticed that all of the MG Performance products were yellow tagged which means they are being discontinued or there is a price change coming up. So if you see yellow price tags on HD items, they're not ordering more so grab what you can if you need it.

So funny when I was working and get flagged down by a little old lady to help with soils, 'oh dear go find one of those strong young men to help, you don't have to lift that!' Right, lady this is my job, what soil do you need. The only one I couldn't handle was the huge brick of soil amendment from Kellog, that had to be 45-50 pounds and a bear to load on a cart. I always asked what soil and they'd point in the direction of the entire fence of product, 'just a bag of soil over here'. 'Which one!' There forty some products on that fence line and I need to know specifically which one so I can call for help if needed! If it were one of these bags, pfft, easy peasy how many you need? Four? okay..you only have a grocery cart..this will be a challenge..or worse, 'oh I don't have a cart'.  ::facepalm:: adding to my frustration for the day, 'I'll go get a cart for you ma'am'. Kind of like going into the store without your wallet knowing you'll be buying something. Really?

So that's it for today, I've got some other writing to do and geek out about having a zucchini growing finally!

Stay cool cucumbers!