Morning, morning is amazing.

 So I was able to get out to the garden earlier today because it was going to be 90 by 10 am. Yeah... it was 104 by 1pm and then hazy smoke layer from wildfires and a battery manufacturer fire drifted in and it cooled by 10 degrees. Still hot and stifling though.

11:30 am and it was 100 already. Weather will be on that repeat for the next few days. I watered this morning so everything had a good soaking and it showed in the afternoon when I went back out.

Beauty and the beast, advantages of getting out early in the garden. Two hummingbirds were almost fighting over the tomatillo bushes! One of them flew off and the victorious female perched on the tomato cage and then darted in to sip from more of the flowers. I got video but as usual it's very shaky and not really worth the nausea to post. There were also bees, at least two or three and tiny sweat bees visiting the flowers!

The other two pictures are of Manny chowing down on a bee (I marked up where he is in case the other picture was hard to make out) He is slowly changing color and so he still stands out a little less. I was so excited to see that he caught a bee though! He knows where to hang out for food obviously and there's more opportunities in this bush than the other one. This is probably nirvana for him, so many places to hide and so many opportunities for food.

 

The poblano got sunburned.... oh well. This heat has been brutal on everyone's garden but when you don't have much, losing even a few plants is even more depressing. That hook shaped tomato at the bottom is coloring slightly, but the larger one is still the same. The little fish pepper is hanging in there nicely, I picked four jalapeños, one was turning orange red and another larger one (still only about two inches was getting some stretch marks.  Someone suggested that you need to thin out peppers to get them to grow to size. Will remember that next year and hopefully be able to plant more.

And this evening, Manny is definitely more green now at least on his back. It's so rewarding to see nature thriving in my surviving garden. It just amazes me that the other tomatillos are dying and these are thriving. Difference in soil and exposure for sure, these in the west bed get a bit more shade in the afternoon and aren't blasted by reflected heat. 

Really need to figure out what to put in that other bed for winter and summer. Winter there's no sun except really really early in the morning and not for long and then shade all day and summer it's a blast oven. Lettuce and cauliflower maybe in the winter? Cilantro of course, carrots and radishes.... but summer that is a tough one.

Will see what happens next year. First... have to get through this year. And this summer.