Still holding and hot as it is going to get

 If I only had mulch I wouldn't be out there every day watering. The pepper in the bucket I think is staying too wet, the soil isn't able to breath and automatic instinct (like customers) oh it's wilting it needs water. Nope, but I lightly water it for the surface and that's it. Everything else is still alive and growing thankfully. And as I say that there will be a disaster tomorrow. Oh and I tossed my bean experiment and will try the damp paper towel in a baggie next.

See the yellow leaves at the bottom of the pepper? That is a sure sign of overwater/malnutrition/both. Glad I didn't dig up the other two but will see if they survive. The peppers in the ground are doing good and one has flowers still, doesn't look like any have dropped off.

Have I mentioned I hate my dirt? I suspect if we're still here by the fall it will improve due to weather but not counting on any influx of cash to help with that any time soon.

Oh and there was a sign that one of the stray cats was in there recently, a divot dug in the loose dirt in the compost pile to the right of the yellow dead marigold.

  I have friends that pay for a garden plot and they have an abosolutely burgeoning garden and can pilfer from other beds that are not being tended. If there were a community garden closer to me I might consider it but at this point, can't justify using the gas to drive ten minutes to the nearest one IF they had a space open.

This garden is just a trash heap really, I'm sure thirty or forty years ago they were used but this being a senior complex says volumes about the energy level that is not there to justify it. That was an extra section of landscape and they decided to put a 'resident garden' area in.

I'm getting frustrated and disgusted and with the money problems it's another added stress that I shouldn't be worrying about.

The larger cucumber is about the same size as the one the gophers got a few weeks ago. I'm hoping that  my makeshift deterrent will keep them at bay.

So light watering today and the same tomorrow. It's hot and breezy but not in a good way. I don't continue with my oft repeated whine about where I live. I think I'll go look at houses on Zillow and see if the market is cooling down.