Yard and Garden - Mid-July
PLUMS - the tree is heavy with fruit (should have thinned it after it blossomed)... the shape has gone all wonky too. All our trees could use some pruning. The lovely plums are taunting us. They look like they are ripe (any day?), but so far are still unpleasantly tart. *Waiting!* A side note: we have put the chicks back there to run around and play and have some sky on several occasions. Very cute.
POTATOES - Think Gloria may have stopped piling more dirt on (which is how you convince the plants to produce more tubers?) But the patch of plants is splendid. Lush. A dense tangle of foliage. Oh, and 2 volunteer tomato plants (we'll have to see what they are) and a couple of sunflowers that have so far remained a modest size and are, thus, being allowed to stay. One of our neighbors has already had blossoms for 3 weeks. I haven't seen any blooms forming, so it will probably be mid-August at this rate.
SWEET POTATOES - Battling the heat, Gloria finished a new area in the garden proper and finally planted half a dozen sweet potato plants grown from slips, rooted, then hanging out on the wrought-iron coffee table for a month. She draped a huge swath of shade cloth over them to help them survive while getting established. The group near the apple trees all made it. (They have been in at least a month now... they wilt a little in the late afternoon, but bounce back by morning.) Wonder if they will be happy there? Not sure how much sun that bed gets? Want to say that Teresa Johansen grew some impressive ones in a bed along the front of her house/ which did not get tons of light.
ONIONS - Gloria's winding down. All have been spectacular. My raised bed of yellows, still puny/ struggling. Can't say that the extra straw mulch I added made any difference.
HELIOTROPES - trying to pass themselves off as potato plants. Big ones by the clothesline. Smaller ones in half a dozen places. Huge leaves bent at startling angles, swiveling like radar antennae.
Saw my first Morning Glories yesterday morning out the back window. Deep pink ones fighting with the grape vines. Gloria really had a craving to go to Osuna Sunday. "To get something to finish out the flower cells along the outside of the garden." I was worried about the weather blistering them, but she got a 6 pack of Portulacas and 6 of dwarf red snapdragons with handsome yellow throats. When I looked last night, she had planted them all. (What would the blessing, the prayer, be? For their survival? For their late but wildly successful life nestled in dirt under a big sky?)
The Weather - more or less normal. Mid-90s at the airport, which means high 90s for us. Very low humidity. No rain, no rain, no rain. Night before last, it poured in the Heights and at UNM; we got 10 drops. Didn't even register on the gauge. Last night, it sprinkled lightly at about 10:30. One-hundredth of an inch. Seemed like it was more at the time. At least it settled the dust. And was enough that I could actually see through my windshield this morning. Scattered clouds darting around in the late afternoon have helped us keep the chickens from frying. Last night, the sunchokes were painfully wilted. Unfortunately, NO water in the ditch? (Not sure what schedule the Sandovals are on. At the start of the summer, they were doing Tuesdays, but it was dry as a bone. And again this morning too.)
Just looking around... the locust is full of seeds, long, gently curling stands of chartreuse. Gloria thinks maybe as a mulch they poison other plants, so we probably need to gather them up and put them somewhere else. The apple trees have been dropping golfball-sized apples, probably because they have gotten so little water? The torn Elm limb is still aloft, hanging by a thread. I am hoping it will drop down onto the limbs below it, then roll down into the ditch on our side, missing their fence.
Digging Dogs - after a quiet interlude, I found they had been digging along the walk up front (what is that poor bush called?) what a mess?! And then they went back to excavating along the top of the ditch just behind our sitting area. Throwing dirt into the ditch. sigh.
POTATOES - Think Gloria may have stopped piling more dirt on (which is how you convince the plants to produce more tubers?) But the patch of plants is splendid. Lush. A dense tangle of foliage. Oh, and 2 volunteer tomato plants (we'll have to see what they are) and a couple of sunflowers that have so far remained a modest size and are, thus, being allowed to stay. One of our neighbors has already had blossoms for 3 weeks. I haven't seen any blooms forming, so it will probably be mid-August at this rate.
SWEET POTATOES - Battling the heat, Gloria finished a new area in the garden proper and finally planted half a dozen sweet potato plants grown from slips, rooted, then hanging out on the wrought-iron coffee table for a month. She draped a huge swath of shade cloth over them to help them survive while getting established. The group near the apple trees all made it. (They have been in at least a month now... they wilt a little in the late afternoon, but bounce back by morning.) Wonder if they will be happy there? Not sure how much sun that bed gets? Want to say that Teresa Johansen grew some impressive ones in a bed along the front of her house/ which did not get tons of light.
ONIONS - Gloria's winding down. All have been spectacular. My raised bed of yellows, still puny/ struggling. Can't say that the extra straw mulch I added made any difference.
HELIOTROPES - trying to pass themselves off as potato plants. Big ones by the clothesline. Smaller ones in half a dozen places. Huge leaves bent at startling angles, swiveling like radar antennae.
Saw my first Morning Glories yesterday morning out the back window. Deep pink ones fighting with the grape vines. Gloria really had a craving to go to Osuna Sunday. "To get something to finish out the flower cells along the outside of the garden." I was worried about the weather blistering them, but she got a 6 pack of Portulacas and 6 of dwarf red snapdragons with handsome yellow throats. When I looked last night, she had planted them all. (What would the blessing, the prayer, be? For their survival? For their late but wildly successful life nestled in dirt under a big sky?)
The Weather - more or less normal. Mid-90s at the airport, which means high 90s for us. Very low humidity. No rain, no rain, no rain. Night before last, it poured in the Heights and at UNM; we got 10 drops. Didn't even register on the gauge. Last night, it sprinkled lightly at about 10:30. One-hundredth of an inch. Seemed like it was more at the time. At least it settled the dust. And was enough that I could actually see through my windshield this morning. Scattered clouds darting around in the late afternoon have helped us keep the chickens from frying. Last night, the sunchokes were painfully wilted. Unfortunately, NO water in the ditch? (Not sure what schedule the Sandovals are on. At the start of the summer, they were doing Tuesdays, but it was dry as a bone. And again this morning too.)
Just looking around... the locust is full of seeds, long, gently curling stands of chartreuse. Gloria thinks maybe as a mulch they poison other plants, so we probably need to gather them up and put them somewhere else. The apple trees have been dropping golfball-sized apples, probably because they have gotten so little water? The torn Elm limb is still aloft, hanging by a thread. I am hoping it will drop down onto the limbs below it, then roll down into the ditch on our side, missing their fence.
Digging Dogs - after a quiet interlude, I found they had been digging along the walk up front (what is that poor bush called?) what a mess?! And then they went back to excavating along the top of the ditch just behind our sitting area. Throwing dirt into the ditch. sigh.
Comments