Relentless heat, start of harvest

We're not going to talk about how unrelentingly, brutally hot it is, nor about the lack of rain.  Thank goodness for a nearby water hydrant and indoor A/C.

Cucumbers are now ready to pick at the rate of one or two a day.  Since I haven't been properly pruning the vines, they may also be hiding.

The vines from the plants I started indoors are making their way across the top of the archway.  They don't want to lie down yet, so I'm tying them down by their tendrils.

The runner beans that, in my mind, were going to climb up the outside of the cucumber vines and have pretty, showy, shell pink blossoms are not doing any of that.  The blossoms they do have are few and far between.  

If I had the inspiration to make home-made tortillas and cook up a Mexican meal, the yellow squash ('Easy Pick Gold') has some beautiful flowers I could use.  Instead, I've been harvesting the fruits when they're no more than six inches long, and sauteeing them in bacon drippings, thinly sliced with green onions.

I wouldn't be harvesting onions now (other than any I wanted to use immediately), but the one rain we've had in ages was accompanied by strong winds, flattening some of them, so I went ahead and pulled them up.

The beets are still wonderful.  I'm getting enough large, healthy leaves that I can harvest now to make a delicious steamed green side dish (or, for the way I eat, a meal of one thing only).  A little salt and a touch of vinegar makes them even more delicious.  

This year, for the first time, I planted 'Bull's Blood' beets.  I don't know about the beetroot yet, of course, but the greens are wonderful.  I'll try them again next year, as this is the first year I've had beets that didn't succumb to either leaf spot or insect feeding before they were large enough to harvest leaves.  Of course this is the first year that I've been gardening here that it turned dry and hellishly hot the first of May and stayed that way.

The French Charentais melon 'Savor' is filling its cage plus the remaining ground space in its bed.

Already it has a nicely developing little fruit.  I saw a video that said the way to know when they're ripe, since the melon rind is green for the duration, is that the tendril at the fruit node will dry up.  I wonder if that's true for all canteloupe type melons.

The rhubarb that has done so well since the first time I planted any has been pathetic this year.  Of course it was up and growing nicely when those first two weeks of April turned into winter, and it sustained injury that manifested as very scrawny stems.  Then, the oven went on two weeks later and hasn't shut off since.  I harvested what was good (less than a quarter of the stems), and then removed two-thirds of what was left.  Where once was a lush hedgerow separating the rose garden from the vegetable garden, now is a scrappy and pitiful arc of half-naked plants.  I'm certain they will grow back nicely if the weather ever gives them a break.

But, no matter I can't harvest any more of it right now, because the dreaded Japanese beetle has made its annual appearance, and they head straight for the roses, the rhubarb, and the okra, which I sprayed with Sevin insecticide since I won't be harvesting anything from them for quite a while.  After that horrible infestation and constant battle last year, I'm not giving them a chance to build up their population this year.  I brought out the Sevin right from the start.  

Since the field crop next to the garden is corn this year,  and not soybeans, I'm hoping if I keep after them religiously, I can keep ahead of them and suffer a shorter infestation period this year.  Next year's farm soybeans don't need a head start from me leaving any to reproduce.  The farmer won't spray the beans when the beetles hit because the beans can tolerate a lot of feeding damage without reducing the harvest.  Why should he spend the money on insecticide?  That left me to try to keep them at bay by spraying the hordes at the edge of the field with my little 5-cup hand sprayer.  What a nightmare!  Not to mention a losing battle.  I bought a backpack sprayer since then, so I'm better prepared for next year when he plants beans up here again.  I wish he'd do a three-year rotation with another crop instead of just alternating corn and beans.  I guess it's better than planting beans every year. 

I don't like spraying that toxic stuff into the environment, and I try not to spray flower heads because it will easily kill the bees, but the beetles will destroy everything given any leeway at all, and it's the rose blooms they go after, rather than the leaves like on other plants.  They're starting to attack the zinnias now.

At least the raccoons didn't tear up anything last night.  Or the night before.  Maybe they're thinking about moving.  I sure hope so. I can't afford the transportation to trap and haul them away this month.

Last post, I bragged about how healthy and damage-free the tatsoi was.  The next day, it looked like this:

Whiteflies, I think.  I sprayed them with Sevin and then pulled them all out the following day.  I've turned into a real chemical menace this year.  Desperate times, desperate measures.

I believe I also bragged about how lovely the cabbages were.  When I saw the white cabbage butterflies,  I did dust the plants with Dipel, preparing for a hatch of caterpillars, but looks like I missed this one.

Leaving the ornamental vegetables for now....

I got a real surprise a few days ago when I went over to check on my little magnolia.  It had several blooms!  If I ever knew, I had forgotten that 'Ann' magnolia "may sporadically repeat bloom in mid summer," according to the Missouri Botanical Garden website.  This is the first time for this little 4-year-old.  It's really a lovely little tree even when it's not in bloom.

The roses are no longer having a problem with the heat, and on most of them, the blooms seem to have gone back to their normal form and color after having suffered a period of dwarfing and paling.

'Neptune'

According to the Palatine Roses website, 'Acropolis' is described as having "flowers of an unusual bronze pink with a white green reverse" and the "blooms are cupped, medium (size) and double in form."  The first flush of blooms was indeed that wonderful color, but this second flush is a bright, light pink.  Neither of the two flushes were what I'd call "medium".  They're quite small.  But maybe this year is not a good one to judge.

'Acropolis'

'Pat Austin' is showing off.

'Pat Austin'

'Pat Austin'

It's a gorgeous flower on the bush, but it doesn't last when cut and brought in.  I may have to experiment with ways to get more time out of them.  If I can't, they're still worth growing.  I can't say the same for the other David Austin rose I have - 'Charles Darwin'.  It's really an unattractive color - kind of tan (the description and picture showed a nice yellow), and it has very thin, flimsy, sprawling branches.  It's not any better this year than last year when I first planted it, so this fall it's going to get relocated outside the rose garden.  Sorry, Chuck.

I thought I'd really love the Queen Lime 'Lime' zinnias.  I like them in mixed bouquets, but I'm not so taken with them in the garden.  

Queen Lime zinnias: 'Lime'

I do, however, love the Queen Lime 'Blush' variety.

Queen Lime zinnia: 'Blush'

Meanwhile, in another corner of the cut flower garden...

Delphiniums and Globe Amaranth

Intense sun and hot winds have them looking pretty exhausted now, but the Asiatic lilies were spectacular when they first opened up.

That's it for now.  Don't melt out there, people.

Roses, Globe Amaranth, ornamental pepper 'Black Pearl', Salvia 'Caradonna',  Queen Lime zinnias,

and a sprig of something that looks like a short white yarrow  (and may well be) and spreads 

like wildfire (if I knew for certain what it is I could warn you not to ever plant any)

Open air roasting

Most things look surprisingly good considering we're not getting any rain.  Of course, I've been watering the garden periodically, but even the cornfields look no worse for the wear.  Yet.  Many of the rose blooms, however, seemed to fry on their stems, and the second flush on some of the plants are at least a third smaller than the first blooms.

And my $10 'Canada Red' rhubarb wilted and put up new leaves twice and then gave up, even though I watered well and tried to shade it a bit.  I should have tried more, I guess, but each time the new leaves came up, they looked great for a day or two.  I'm extremely disappointed, and not happy about the money wasted.  

Ah, well.  I have been able to harvest some of the dozen other green-stemmed plants, but it's been limited due to the damage they sustained when we had freezing temps in April.   I read a note from a St. Louis woman visiting Chicago remarking about the wonderful weather there, saying St. Louis had "the longest winter ever followed by blazing heat."  I don't know if St. Louis is getting any rain, but this past week, we seem to be in a dry corridor with rain a few miles to the south and then a few miles to the north.  Maybe we'll get a turn next.  I hope.

The tatsoi has been lovely, and it's had far less insect feeding injury than in past years.  I decided that if I'm going to grow it, I need to find a way to cook it or use it other than as an addition to tossed salads, so my first attempt was at simply steaming it with salt as I would spinach or beet greens.  It tasted like other greens that I'm not fond of, like mustard greens.  I'll need to find another preparation.  It's so pretty, I hate to eliminate it from the ornamental vegetable garden.

I've pulled up the peas, such as they were, and will save them to plant next spring.  I have eaten very few while I working in the garden, but pretty much, this is my entire year's harvest:

How sad is that?  That April freeze robbed me of my peas.

The lima beans that I later planted in the pea row seem to be coming on ok.

The cabbages are not as riddled with feeding damage this year either.  I don't know if the "longest winter ever" cut back on the worm population or if I managed to get the Dipel on them at the right time this year.  Or maybe both.

'Early Jersey Wakefield' cabbage beginning to form a head

Aside from a few baby leaves off the red-veined sorrel, I haven't made any culinary use of the dock and sizu plot.  I keep thinking I'll boil some sizu and use the liquid to make pink rice, something I read about somewhere.   

One cucumber vine has made it to the top of the trellis, and I've placed a screen across the top to hold it up as it grows across.

Those leaf spots are barely noticeable now, and they were on everything.  So far, I've harvested and eaten two cucumbers, and several more are looking promising.

The 'Savor' French Charentais melon plants are filling up their cage and spilling out.  I'll be lucky if I even know when there's a ripe one in the middle of the cage, let alone be able to get it out.   I decided to let them run out onto the ground at one side so I might at least be able to get one or two melons!

The growth habit of the zucchini plants are better suited to caging.

I've recently harvested four baby beauties like this:

I'm still hoping this row of globe type basil plants will meet together to form a little hedge.  I originally hoped the row of purple basils inside them would make a full, taller hedge behind them.  Not sure that's going to happen.  For one thing, I probably needed to get more water on them.

The first planting of beets looks great, except for the fact that so few of them germinated.  The second planting did better.  I don't know why the first planting on May 2 didn't germinate well.  The second planting was on May 23, and the temperatures were pretty much the same for both.

'Bull's Blood' beets

'Bull's Blood' beets

This is the first time I've planted 'Bull's Blood', and whether it's just the weather this year, or the resistance of the plants, they're virtually free of the leaf spot that all my other beets had in previous years.  I'll try them again next year and see if they do as well.

The okra is coming along.  The outer row of 'Jing Orange' is catching up with the inner row of 'Red Burgundy'.

The insect and disease pressure this year has been mild so far.  I imagine some of that can be attributed to the freezing cold winter and first two weeks in April.

But I did find this telltale sign of insect activity on the underside of a poppy leaf:

Squash bug eggs.  I squashed 'em.

Somebody else was walking around on the poppies.  Can you see the walking stick in this picture?:

I happily let him (or her) continue on.  I know it's not fair that I let it keep eating when I wiped out the squash bugs, but walking sticks tend to be solitary, whereas squash bugs dine in large groups and can destroy plants very quickly.  They also stink and are not cute.  

Speaking of poppies:  Amongst the seeds of last year's 'Hungarian Blue' and 'Lauren's Grape' purple poppies, there was one white poppy - a mutation whose seeds I collected to see whether they would produce plants and, if so, what color.  The first buds looked like they were going to be purple, but they aborted.  And today...

I'll collect seeds of this one, too, and plant them out next year to see if they keep producing a white poppy.  I assume this is a mutation and not from an actual white poppy seed, because the plants I grew two years ago were all purple poppies.  I collected and planted their seeds, and from that generation, a white poppy plant appeared.  I suppose it could be that a parent somewhere back in the generational lineage was white, and this is a reversion to that type.  I'm not a geneticist.

Also, I have enough to try to puzzle out with those marigolds that had one yellow and one red flower to start out (yellow first to bloom).  Since then, they've continued producing only the red flowers.  Two of those plants, however, are producing a form of the flower that neither of the parent plants had - a single row of red petals with a yellow center.  This blended type is what I would have expected if anything out of the ordinary happened due to a cross between the two types.  I still can't explain the one yellow flower they started with.

Pretty, isn't it?  

I'm enjoying the toothache plant.  I was expecting a more pronounced or more brightly colored flower head, but the foliage is very nice.  I think this makes a very attractive ground cover, and, depending upon how it looks the rest of the year, and what happens in the spring, I'll try to keep it in mind if I ever need a  cover for a sunny area.  In fact, I have a couple of spots with varying degrees of shade that I might try it out in.  Out in?

'Grande Amore' has put out its first flush of cherry red blooms.  I like the pairing with this perovskia 'Little Spire'.  (Actually, the perovskia looks even prettier with 'Acropolis' rose, but 'Acropolis' isn't blooming nicely yet.)

The second flush of blooms on 'Shazam!', while still plentiful, are much paler and a good deal smaller.  The yellow underside of the petals isn't even noticeable. I've not seen it do that in the four years I've had it.

I'm so happy that my little 'Siren Red'  crepe myrtle made it through the winter.  I've grown it from a seed I collected from a plant I bought that didn't make it through its first winter here.  This is its third year of life, and it's really sweet.  I don't know if it will bloom this year, but I'm just glad it has managed to thrive. 

Now I have to find a place to plant it this fall where it can get some protection from the howling winter winds.  I just don't know where that will be!  I might simply pot it up to the next size and drop the whole pot into the ground next to the south wall of the house and then bring it back out to the patio in the spring.  I wonder how long I could keep doing that.

Until next time, if you're looking for me, I'll be doing a rain dance.