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End of summer notes
I'm finally picking cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and lettuce every day. There may be as many as 200 green cherry tomatoes clinging to the vines, so I'm hoping for a bit of warmth this month to ripen them up. Today the skies did not oblige. Instead, in dress rehearsal for November, they staged a gloomy 24 hours of gray rain. Perfect set up ( Read more... ) -
Back in the garden
The broccoli burgeoned while we were away; at least, the broccoli next to the potatoes did. Those that are further away were covered with aphids. Do broccoli aphids dislike potatoes?
At any rate, washing sheets of grey fuzzy aphids from the dark green curls of broccoli leaves under a beautiful Seattle twi-lit sky felt sweetly meditative and restful ( Read more... ) -
Flowers, lettuces, and clover.
The cool weather continues, although the sun is now peeking through. I'm sure it will become blisteringly hot once we head East.
Remember the cute little baby broccoli from late June?
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It's a cold, cold summer.
We're into our fourth day of weather in the 60's. It stayed only in the 70's for the few days before that. And then rain again, last night. It's ideal weather for all the new landscape plants, so I'm not complaining. The tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are, though. Had I known it would be one of *those* summers, I'd have planted all cold weather ( Read more... ) -
Late summer landscape additions
Planted 8/1/07:
Acer palmatum scolopedrifolium rubrum, aka Atrolineare . At least, that's what I think it is. Quite a beauty.
Gunnera. This one got plenty of rotted manure and peat moss. Planned receptacle for summer gray water. My husbands thinks it's cute. He's in for a surprise next summer. Hee!
Euphorbia "portuguese velvet": The right cultivar, ( Read more... ) -
Window herbs
My south windowsill received two big blue ceramic pots of seeds today: Greek Oregano (origanum heracleoticum), Plain Leaf Parsley, and "Windowbox Mini-basil" (osimum basilicum). They look like empty tubs of dirt, but I can almost smell the oregano already.
I'm sure they'd get a better start in the summer sun outside, but I know that this also would ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
Yesterday Seattle emerged today from 4 unheard-of days of soaking rain. In the middle of July. If you've ever been to Seattle after July 4th, you'll know that this is as wacky as weather gets in these parts. There is usually close to zero rainfall in July and August. (What little wisps of misty drizzy falls, invariable comes on the evening of July ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
61 degrees and drizzling rain. Why now? Why not the week after the parsnips went in, when, instead, the soil got baked in 97 degree sun blasted weather?
More of same predicted for the next week. -
Sleeping weather
We've had our obligatory 2-day heat wave. Now it's back to our usual low 70's, green tomato weather. The seed beds, like my water bill, love this weather. -
Loopers
I thought I'd have a first season reprieve--a kind of honeymoon with my garden--in which the pests had yet to find my veggies. I pictured myself wandering beatifically through the lushly bountiful garden, blithely harvesting relatively pest-free crops. I'm reasonable about bugs: I can tolerate some nibbling here and there. I have good soil, I water ( Read more... )