The Heat Is On - Again

We had a lovely few days over the weekend, but these last two have been brutal.  This summer will go down in memory as the hottest on record.  In someone's memory.  Mine won't be able to hold onto it very long.

The Gold Rush squash seeds I planted in the tomato cage haven't germinated, and I'm guessing they're not going to, since I planted them on July 31.  The beets I planted at the same time are about an inch high.

During one of those nice days, I dug up the lovage that I'd planted the first year of my garden and which turned out to be a perennial.  I can see why it survives.  The tap roots are quite hearty.

I grew it at the suggestion of a neighbor, but I prefer the celery, which is an annual, but I like the taste of celery better, and the lovage comes up early enough that if the weather is cool - which it has been each year, and it's likely to be every year early on - it contracts a leaf spot, making it unfit for use, if you don't spray.  And I don't.  This could be an artifact of having the garden next to a wildflower garden.  I don't know.

The lima beans have just begun flowering.  I wish I'd dug out the onions sooner, since most of them rotted in the rain soaked ground anyway.  I could have extended my one short lima bean bed.

The nasturtiums are starting to look scruffy.  The flowers are nice, but the leaves are going.  But the Mexican sunflowers are still bright and cheerful, and their foliage is luxurious.

Tomatoes are starting to come on regularly.  It will be interesting to see if the weather stays warm enough long enough for them to start fruiting again and ripen before fall frost.  They grew lush with all the heat and rain, but after it turned so brutally hot in June, most of the flowers died on the vines without setting fruit.

And the okra is still producing and looking good.  That is, where it's in full sun.  It's producing, but not nearly so well, where it's in partial shade.  It's the only planting, aside from herbs and limas, that is happy with the weather we've been having.  But maybe that's not a bad thing, since I wouldn't want to have to be out in the garden tending and harvesting in this heat anyway.

'Til next time.