The Hottest Summer on Record

I don't want to think of breaking this year's heat record in the future.  This morning was the first one in weeks that it wasn't too hot to go to the garden when it was just light enough to see, even before the sun "came up".

Basil is flowering, the okra is as tall as I am, and the Mexican sunflower is still going strong.

Plots where I had squash and beets are still fallow and covered with a layer of grass mulch.  I plan to plant more beets where the squash had been, but I may leave the beet plot empty.

Purple Ruffles basil that I started from seed indoors on the 19th of May and transplanted June 29 is happy and beautiful.  Apparently, it loves heat.

So, what's to do at the end of July in my ornamental vegetable garden?  Weeding would be a good bet, but I try to stay on top of the weeds from the beginning, and at least pull a few each time I go out.  I have more weeds this year than I have in the past, but I've decided to call one kind a salad green and let it grow.  Purslane.  So there.  One less weed to pull.

I even found a tomato, cucumber and purslane salad recipe.  Too bad my cucumbers croaked.

Speaking of weeds.  My compost heap is totally overgrown!  I don't want to spray it out with herbicide, so I guess I'm going to have to wait until it all dies and take a shovel out there and turn it under.  I won't think about that monumental chore right now.  Maybe the early winter will be mild and I'll take my sweet time doing it bit by little bit.

This year, I found a nice surprise in my compost pile: potatoes.  Nice little bonus for having done nothing but thrown out some grocery store potatoes that didn't get used before they went soft.  They'll not be organic, but I dug some out already when they were small and roasted them. They were quite yummy. Obviously, there are more to be had.  When it cools off enough to dig.

Like every morning, this morning I went out to capture Japanese beetles.  I also had to spray the asparagus ferns and some roses.  I thought the little buggers were on the decline, but they were certainly plentiful on the shrub roses at the back side of the wildflower garden this morning.  Between them, my string trimmer, and my mother's mowing, those shrubs have taken a beating in the last three years.  I'm probably going to have to hit the ground under them with herbicide in the early spring, spray insecticide regularly, and mulch heavily if they're going to have a chance to live.  One of the three is already looking like a lost cause.  I'm guessing it's a type of witches' broom disease.  Perhaps I should cut that one down before it spreads.

My sister pointed out to me that I'd made an error in yesterday's post, and I've corrected it.  I said that I put acetone fingernail polish on a kleenex in my kill jar.  If you saw that and are back today, it was supposed to say acetone fingernail polish remover.

Let me say here, if when you find future errors (or today's errors, for that matter), please click the comment link above the post and let me know.  I thank you.

This morning's "catch", and that won't nearly be all that were there.

I'm collecting (euphemism for killing) the Japanese beetles off okra in my garden, which is where they hang out and cause damage.  

I've noticed this year with the proliferation of Japanese beetles on the okra there are concurrently lots of granddaddy long-legs (aka daddy long-legs, aka harvestmen, which are not actually spiders).  I hadn't noticed them in earlier years in such numbers.  I'm wondering if they're attracted to something that's going on with the Japanese beetles.  They're generally known as scavengers, eating dead insects, but maybe they're also after something else.  I've read they eat bird droppings, so maybe they also eat Japanese beetle droppings.  There's plenty of that in the okra.  

I'm also seeing ladybird beetles on the okra.  I'm not sure what they're eating either, but generally speaking, juvenile (larval) ladybird insects are eating some stage of pest insects, so that's helpful.  Another reason I don't spray chemical insecticides.  I don't want to kill beneficial insects like grandaddy long-legs, ladybird beetles, bees, assassin bugs and some other insects.  I saw a young praying mantis this morning.  They are weird but wonderful.  

That said, there are some plant-feeding ladybird beetles, including the Mexican bean beetle, but I'm pretty sure these are not, so I leave them alone.  If they are eating the plants, there aren't enough of them to do any harm.

There's one mallow in the wildflower garden, and Japanese beetles like that, too.  It's in the same family as okra.  They especially like roses, and I was surprised to find hordes of them on the asparagus fern, because the other plants they prefer are broad-leaved.  

I keep saying "asparagus fern", but that's not really correct. There's actually a fern called asparagus fern.  What I'm talking about is asparagus stalks that have bolted and flowered.  They look like fern, and so they apparently call that "ferning out".   So I should be saying the beetles are in hordes in the ferned-out asparagus.

Tomatoes are still growing and ripening.  Hooray.  They don't seem to be setting fruit, though, and who can blame them?  It's too darned hot.

Till next time.