Cooler weather? Maybe? More tomatoes

 It started cloudy and cooler than yesterday but was cleared by noon. I woke in the middle of the morning (3 am ish) and there wasn't a whisper of a breeze. With the sun rising though the air warmed and the breeze picked up. Fan is pointed at the window and pulling the air through from the front door so it is pleasantly cool.

The orange Boug is still looking good and the flowers on the trumpet vine are fading. They aren't as bright red as I remember seeing them elsewhere. They should typically be almost as bright colored as that bougainvillea.

There is a fruit on the gazebo epiphyllum. Not sure if it's viable or not for seed but it would be interesting. The lady downstairs apparently can't make up her mind on what to plant near her door. That smaller bush is a lantana like the big one. She had two succulents there before and now a lantana that looks a bit wilted. Good lord lady give the plants a chance!

Radishes in full sunlight now and I told my friend who gave me the seeds how that was the only variety of the three that came up. She was stumped as well. I didn't bother with watering as  I did it very well yesterday and it is cooler today. Most likely tomorrow though as it is warm today enough to bake the soil.

 

Tomatoes are doing their thing on all the bushes. Going to be a glut of tomatoes but that's fine with me. We go through them pretty fast so eating two or four a day is not unusual and by the time these are ready we'll be done with the bag we got the other day.

What I have noticed now that the tomatoes are forming is the progression of the flower stem. You can see the flower is at a right angle to the stem then as the flower is pollinated the petals curl back and drop off. The stem then flexes down more and the sepals open up in a star pattern due to the forming fruit pushing them aside. So now I can look at the cluster and know if they've been pollinated or not.

What am I showing with these photos? Snail trail on one of the back leaves of the tomato. Yes indeed, it is snails that likely ate the cucumber in one night. I will be making a 'yeast trap' to put out for them. Pieces of bread in water and orange rinds scattered around in the back of the bed. Stupid jade plant is making it difficult to get to the back of the bed on that side.

 

And there's the evidence. Most definitely snail damage on that leaf.

All the bushes are showing signs of fruit forming so I suspect by August I should have fruit ripening almost every day. Yay!

 

Leaning tower of coriander continues but at least it's not shading the tomato any longer. I am so very proud and pleased about how well the tomatoes all turned out. The onions are still struggling a bit but they're coming along. Bound and determined to get that empty trellis filled in but not until the snail issue is dealt with. 

Poor Layla has one tomato growing in her two gallon bucket. Bless her but if she can't get soil to grow in the crate I'm not going to be giving it to her. I suspect that I could fill it with soil and a little dirt mixed in and put it over in her bed, but then I saw she had more fenugreek growing there so she must have planted more seeds when she came back. 

I'm not being selfish am I? I have something that would be useful to someone but if they can't use it properly then why give it to them? I'll keep my eyes peeled for more crates on the exchange group but once a gardener gets hold of a crate to use for planting it's very difficult to pry it from them.

Now to the problem of the snail traps.  It needs to be deep enough and set into the ground so they just fall in, but not too shallow that they can crawl back out. A light color is best so using the black mushroom containers I have are out. I have some clear plastic storage containers that may work. Knew I needed to save that bread brick but decided to throw it out yesterday. 

Pictures will happen when I figure that out.