Goodness the days got away from me!

 Well, another zucchini, some tomatoes coming along and a creative mulch substitute.

September 2

September 3

I picked it yesterday and it was bigger than the previous one I had picked. There's another forming even now because I pollinated it yesterday. I ate the older and smaller one today just sliced it up, put it in water to boil, salt, pepper and garlic powder, added butter when I drained it. Yummy! Now looking for the best recipe for tempura fried zucchini. Might have to get the recipe out for deep fried artichoke hearts and use that.

I also pruned a few of the larger lower leaves off so it was easier to see the flowers,  still fewer females than males and the other bush just isn't coming along as well as the other.  Then there's the tomatoes

Same tomato different angle, should be ready in the next day or two. There's cracking showing on the top already and as I said, dual problem of irregular watering and excessive heat. I came up with an idea though after I watered to use the large zucchini leaves as a short term mulch. We're in the 90's again for a few days and this may help.

They will be wrinkled and dried up by the end of the day but it will still cover the ground and keep the moisture in. I put one over the miniscule cilantro seedling that I almost drowned as well as the small patch I threw the bell pepper seeds. I won't leave them much longer than a day or two because I will have to water again even if that does help. By then I hope the heat wave is over.

I also had a fly by from a Swallowtail checking out the lemon tree.

She was flitting all over the place and I had to take about six or seven pictures before she stopped long enough to not be blurry. I don't think she landed long enough to lay any eggs and frankly if a caterpillar did grow it would decimate about a third of it.

Speaking of decimated, let me see if I can upload those photos of the other beds this time.

Dead and dying mint

Looks like spittle bug

What's left of the spurge

 She pulled all the grass out finally leaving the very weak and spindly spurge. She continues to water but that's what happens when someone is doing it out of habit and slightly less mental capacity, that sounds unkind but it is a sad truth. When you live around people that are surprisingly older than yourself and I'm considered old!  So at some point in time it would be lovely to have that much more room to plant things, maybe even a flower bed. The large task ahead though is digging out my existing beds at the end of the season and adding more compost. Am not looking forward to that at all but it should be cooler by the time that happens. Still hard work.

Oh a reminder about leaving plants in a saucer that holds water. Please don't! I found out where I was getting mosquitos from and turns out one of the downstairs neighbors has just that. Those little buggers love standing water. I was walking Rocky this morning and saw something flying around my knees, shooed it away and then realized what it was. I waited, let it land on my shin then smacked the hell out of it. Looked at the flattened remains and sure enough, mosquito. 

So dump your catch basins, dump and refill your birdbaths, look for puddles that hang around for more than a day and fix it. Pools and ponds don't usually have a problem due to having fish and small fountains have moving water which they don't like to lay eggs in. There are natural products on the market if you have a situation that collects water and is not disturbed. Mosquito Dunks/Donuts or Bits, they are a corn gluten I believe or something like that but is mixed with BT, same bacteria that kills caterpillars. Non toxic for birds, pets and people. 

Size difference

I'm out there checking every day so I can catch them before they get too big. Still not sure about why they aren't nice and cylindrical, likely has to do with either the variety or pollination. If I left them on long enough to get evenly shaped they'd be as big as my forearm. Still tasty and I ate the small one, the big one hopefully will be fried if it's not too hot, in the kitchen that is.

So not too much else happening, as far as I know I didn't get the job at the nursery but oh well. I'm enjoying having less stress, or the only stress is dealing with less than insightful people when I go out. That is another topic for another blog.