And the sun returns again

 The clouds were already burning off by noon so it's warm and windy again today. Lots of pictures of flowers and some loss in the garden. Since the weather is improving there's still hope for more seeds to plant. Temps are in the low 70's and the breeze is enough to keep things comfy. Today is orange and pink flower day!

The other Bougainvillea near the patio is brilliant orange, it's showing two tones due to angle and age of the flowers. The epi on the gazebo patio has that flower and another bud that hasn't opened yet but other flowers have opened on the vine behind it.

 

I had forgotten that the vine on the south east side was a Blood Red Trumpet vine. I thought both were purple but there is more than one vine on that side and it could very well be purple as well mixed in. Hummingbird magnets for sure but no sign of them when I was taking a picture.

 

Wonderful clear skies and sun on the garden. This is what gardens are about and can't wait to post progress photos as things progress and change. That seems like a long distance, and technically as gardens go it is, but when you have three and four foot long beds, distance fills up quickly.

 

The tomatoes are looking better but I attribute that to the warming weather and sun since I only fed them yesterday. Organics don't absorb that quickly, and I didn't put that much on. I need to work that into my budget for this month as well since I used the last of it yesterday and that was a 'light' feeding mostly.

 

The peppers didn't make it. The smaller one felt wilted so I tugged lightly and it came right out of the ground, no new roots at all. The other one was only slightly harder to tug but again, no roots really so they were relegated to the compost bucket. I marked the spots with chopsticks and will wait to see when the radishes come up before planting anything else.
 

The tomatoes look pale but that's just the lighting, if I adjusted it a bit they would look a bit better. I took the picture of the south bed to show how much sun those are getting. It was close to 1 pm and the shade was just starting to creep into the bed. I suspect they will have plenty of sun when the June Gloom finally fades away. The onions don't seem to be getting any bigger unfortunately. 

There were the same flies buzzing around the coriander this morning, two houseflies and the hover flies. I would think the flowers would attract other pollinators but given the size of the flowers, I think nature knows what it's doing.

 

Flowers generally go in odd numbers starting with 3, 5, 7 and nine. So one 'umbel' of flowers has six or seven clusters of seven flowers. One umbel therefore has the potential for 42-49 seeds per flower head. There are the occasional mishaps with growth but let's say it's a cluster of 5 stems with 7 flowers, minimum is 35 seeds. I have a LOT of flowers on those bushes. I love the multiplication of one plant to seeds. I've never cooked with coriander but will be looking at recipes using it in the future.

Something was munching on the lettuce it seems, which is not really surprising but as long as it isn't decimated overnight I'm fine with the two that are left. Will let them go as long as possible before pulling them completely and still have to decide what to put on the other side. As I said before, given the tomatoes in front, might have to leave it empty for a while. I made sure to sprinkle some fertilizer there at least and will go back in this evening and water again. The seeds in the south bed need to stay damp but it was still good level when I checked this morning. The spot where the peas were was very loose soil so it dried out quickly in the sun.

Once the coriander is done there will be a bit more room to see and reach things at the back. You can see from the photo I just left the empty fertilizer bag there because I was too lazy to take it to the dumpster.

So that's it for today, still sunny, breezy and warm at 4:30pm. In about two months I will be pining for cooler temperatures while sitting in a closed up room with the fan and A.C. going. Enjoying it while it's here though.