And so it begins, again.

 At least there is a nice breeze this morning but the day has dawned clear and crisp and very sunny with a portent of getting to mid 80's.  We have shuttle duty and some errands to run so I suspect we'll close up with the AC before we leave. It's so nice outside though!

Clear to the horizon with a scrubbed clean sky and a Naked Lady somehow sprang up! I don't usually look in that direction when I'm out because I'm either headed to the garden or watching Rocky. This is hiding over in the rose garden behind the electrical box. Easy to miss. Had to stop and smell it though.

Dolores' first pumpkin is a fail, but as she said, she's not growing it for the fruit.  Those two tomatoes are in the south bed and show no signs of BER. Keeping an eye on them though. They may be one of the few successes on that bush.

Last night and this morning. I found another open female flower and got as much pollen as I could from the males. That one I think was open this morning and pollinated it. The cucumber is very rapidly climbing out of the bed. 

I showed the dust of pollen that I gathered from a flower and compared it to the pollen from the punpkin, wow. Pumpkin: yeah I got pollen! Cucmber: It might or might not be pollen you have on your brush. Didn't get a picture. I had my brush so I stealth pollinated one of her pumpkin flowers after brushing her tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are usually very prolific and fruit easily even in partial shade. This plant is being stubborn or recovering from possibly too much shade. At least it's still putting out flowers.

 Well here's hoping they are all getting a good start to grow. Lots and lots of flowers and from experience, those closed ones will be open tonight. So pollinating will be continuing for a while. I'll be happy to get one or two good shaped cucumbers. From pictures I've seen, cucumbers have a tendency to not be pollinated well and get oddly shaped. 

I answered someone's post about strawberry pups she had to spare so will be going to pick up a few today on my errands. Where I'm going to put them I have no idea. They look bigger than the windowbox can handle but that's the best place for them at the moment. It's end of the season for them so not going to get a lot of growth or any flowers/fruit until next year. If they take root they'll go dormant over the winter so I might end up putting them in the cups I have to root and plant them... somewhere, in the spring.

Another experiment in gardening and will see what happens.