Butterflies, spiders and I found Manny again!

 No more rain, still have heat, school has started. Yah, I don't remember it being this hot when I started school and first day of school was always the first Tuesday after Labor day. It got up to 90 today where I was around 1pm and now at 10 pm it's 73. Makes a biiig difference and a very slight breeze so very nice indeed. (oh and everything is okay with the money problems thanks to my generous son.)

Yeah, failed attempt at getting a picture of the half moon, oh well. I couldn't find the filter or setting that would make it look better.

Same thing with an orb weaver spider that set up a web on the patio. It was low light and I wasn't able to get much closer. It's the out of focus cream dot. 

I did get a video of a swallowtail flitting around the lemon bush after she laid an egg!  Typically I don't save eggs on plants unless it's a monarch but this is special and not my bush. I had to reduce the original over 1 minute video because blogger doesn't allow anything bigger than 100mb (besides there's only so much camera movement people can take). A little blue grey butterfly was checking out the mint flowers yesterday but it was so hard to get a good photo I just deleted them.

 

And here's Manny! Opposite side of the bushes and just hanging out upside down as usual. He must have climbed further down in the heat and then reappeared again. Yay! It's possible he will stay that color or may change to green as he grows. Hopefully he will stick around long enough for me to find out.

Poblanos, jalapeños and tomatoes oh my! I tied back the taller tomatoes on the trellis with the only thing I had handy in the garden. Most of the green wire is likely in my basket or buried in the bottom of the bucket. Still no tomatillos but the pepper I planted in front of the tomatillo in the west bed is blooming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then took a look at the potato and I know I saw a red potato there before but I got the trowel and tried to dig it up, to no avail. I did pull off a small sprouting root and decided to try and grow it in the corner of the raised bed.  No little nubbins on the root and as dark as that soil is, it wasn't very damp so I watered everything again. Will see if I get any potatoes next spring from that. I kept saying, 'I can't plant anything in that corner until I get more soil'. Well it doesn't matter to the potato if it gets buried, it'll still grow and actually form more potatoes. So it's good in that corner.

 

 

 

 

Close up of the tomatoes, very pointy and a bit curved. If they are as productive as the regular romas I will likely do a repeat of both next year. I think I'm going to like the regular Roma's better but will see.

Lots of squash but only a few are growing big enough to harvest. I cut another two off yesterday and one more today. If all of them were viable I'd be overflowing with them and trading them off for eggs or something. Squash will continue to produce, trying to keep it off the onion but it's hard to do that and it's going to be hanging over the edge of the wall pretty soon. I cut a few of the back leaves off that were the oldest so there's more sun in the front right corner and the Jalapeño and Fish Pepper isn't as crowded. Another lesson learned, plant it farther back and watch for where it's leading off to and rotate accordingly. I could have technically leaned it against the trellis but nah.

So that's basically all for the last two days. More heat expected, no rain in sight, slightly higher humidity but such is late summer.

Manny is back in the garden!