Sigh....

 Skies were cloudy this morning but cleared off by 11 a.m. which makes for a cooler day and not as much need for water, but because of seeds watered anyway. Very nice blustery breeze as well so a lovely day for being in the garden. 

If I had an idyllic garden with burgeoning crops and beautiful flowers. Instead, gopher sign and dusty gritty dirt.

 

New dirt was pushed up from the second marigold hole, I flooded it anyway. The peppers are doing really well actually and the one sunflower that came up on the corner I am going to have to move, it's going to get too big and encroach the walkway. For some reason that corner has the best growing conditions, the radishes loved it and so did the tomato.

The seed package said to plant them about 18 inches apart and yet the beans they wanted almost on top of each other. Go figure. It will be moved maybe over to the fence bed.

There's enough room at least to put it on the other side of the cucumber so that's the best as long as the beans come up... sigh. I also put sticks where the three cucumbers were planted and I circled the other one coming up. It might be a sunflower and if it is, off to the other bed it will go. That's the problem with having the first leaves looking so similar, you know what you've got when the first real leaves come out.

The bark around the peppers is actually doing a good job of keeping the soil moist, they are growing really well and I made sure to fertilize today. You can see the lighter dots of it after I watered in the fence bed.  I moved the bark away from the base of the peppers and the soil was nice and dark, testament to mulching. Just wish I could buy some to put on the other beds.

As I water little pebbles and rock bits will surface and I pick them out. Some of them no bigger than  a quarter inch, others a little bigger so if I had decided to use mesh to sift out the pebbles I have to use essentially window screen. There are some people that say rocks to a certain size are good for aeration and obviously they've never gardened in actual dirt like this. Sandy, gritty clay soil that may be high in iron (indicated by the red color) but not a heckuva lot else in nutrients.

Which brings me to an observation on the peppers. They're growing and putting out big dark green leaves, just like the tomato did, they are also stretched out a bit as if they were growing in shade. That's a problem and that's why I fertilized today (oh the package said to use a tablespoon per square foot. Oops) Not enough phosphorous or potassium to get them stronger and putting out flowers and fruit. Yes I pinched them back but that is a survival thing as well, which I have covered previously. 

Anyway, gorgeous breezy day which I will spend most of inside because there's not much else to do.