Bleh.... not much going on

Weather is sunny and very gusty breezy which means the weather is going to change again. Wonderful temperatures with the breeze/wind and since I had to go out to water it was lovely.

The tomatoes are still being torn to shreds by worms. I picked another handful off yesterday and when I hosed the bushes off today while watering knocked another ten off of all sizes. The oregano is definitely Greek with that cluster of soon to be small white flowers. Need to find an Italian oregano plant now and a small thyme for that bed.

Definite female flower right there and the male flowers are either done or not close to opening. Will see what happens. The ovary shape confirms it's one of the butternut type squash and am still wondering how Dolores got it to grow up like a vine. It's definitely a squash and if I get just one it'll be fine. The peppers I am still worried about.

There are side branches sprouting on the stem where the leaves were all chewed off thankfully but at this rate they won't be big enough to produce until September. The tomato seeds.... I noticed yesterday looking at them closely, at least two seeds had been washed to the surface. I need to start them inside or on the patio to keep an eye on them. I might drop a couple of fertilizer pellets in that soil. 

If I had a soil screen or fine mesh sieve I'd be sifting some of the 'compost' for seed starting mix. Something else I realized looking at the 'compost' layer I'm using as a mulch, it really is more like fine bark mulch rather than anything like compost. It's got large pieces of wood and it may be a soil 'compost' but it's not going to break down any time soon. The raised bed and the in ground soil will be better for it when it gets all mixed through but there are still some mighty big chunks of uncomposted wood. Seriously just wood chips really and I would likely uses that at the bottom layer of a bed on top of leaves or what have you so it will break down faster. But if I could get something to sift through the mulch and compost I would be able to have some nice seed starting mix for free. There are still bits of eggshell and other stuff in the compost bucket from either Dolores or my compost. Whenever I see someone say 'you can always use eggshells and coffee grounds in your compost' or even worse, in the soil, I get so .... perturbed. A lot of DIY garden people are now saying to use a small blender to grind up the eggshells and then soak them in water to get any benefit from them. It's still not going to release the calcium needed very quickly. 

Anywho, not much else going on, Jacaranda is still in bloom, bees are buzzing in the tree and the occasional hummingbird flits by.

View out my window, slight haze from some wildfires to the east of us. The tree sprouts on the left have made a comeback like gangbusters and landlord or tenants aren't doing anything about it because it's a good visual screen. The shadecloth is blocking the doorway view because of nosy neighbors, ahem, and the mallow that was up to the bottom of the larger window is now brown and shrunken so you can see the two wooden chairs against the wall again. The pepper tree is once again visible as a bush on the stump. 

For reference, this was back in late March, can't even tell where the tree is with the green mallow behind it. But a little bit of the stump is visible to show that it was once a tree. Not sure if they're going to hack it back again or just let it grow over.

So, good thing is, the root suckers from the tree is a nice green wall and the birds are slowly making a comeback. Doves and other birds are more evident from the calls I've heard in the morning. 

For a Saturday it's rather quiet and calm so far, wonder where everyone is.