Fall Cleanups

Yes I know it isn't fall yet, but since I'm pulling out dead and diseased summer flowers and crops it sure seems like it. Well except for the sweat pouring off brow even in the morning. And I only work in the garden in the mornings. We had a brief time in the 70s now we are back in the 80s with nasty humidity. I'm looking forward to the real fall weather.

The first order of business on Wednesday morning was to take down the cosmos behind the zinnias. The cosmos had two sections. One that had bloomed and turned brown. The other that never bloomed and just got a bad case of powdery mildew. It looked ugly. So now the zinnias are all alone. BTW those black things are to keep people from running into the rock wall. We already had to pay $500 once to fix it. I don't want to do it again. The turn from the driveway into the street (which the rock wall garden lines) is too sharp. If you don't do it just right you will hit the wall.

The other clean up chore was the lone Cherokee Purple tomato in the garden. Since I can't even touch the foliage on these plants anymore, I was finding it hard to pick the fruit. So a lot of fruit was rotting on the vine. This plant was about three times the size you see here. It was about six feet wide along the fence and came out into the garden a bit along the bed. So I covered myself head to toe. I used nose filters combined with those white dust filters. And I went at it. I harvested what was ripe and what was knocked off. I also disposed of at least 5 rotting tomatoes. The plant is amazingly healthy for being right up next to the fence. The fence is on the southwest side of this plant so it sees some significant shading. Of course now most of that foliage has been removed. I was way too hot after completing this chore so I retreated into the house and took my shower.

I used to love the smell of tomatoes. But weirdly I don't anymore. And yes I could smell them through two filters. Now they just scream poison at me and make me cringe. Oh how our perceptions can change. If only peppers and tomatoes in food didn't smell so good. I wish there were a way to make me hate that smell too. Or maybe not. My husband still eats them.

My urban melon patch before cleanup

This morning I wanted to get two things done. I wanted to clean out the melons that were done and cut out the corn stalks that have been harvested. Only the former got done. It took longer than expected and I also did the cukes that were next to them.

I only have three melons left on two plants. I had to leave up four of the cages though since they had spread to their neighbors. Hannah's Choice didn't survive the wilt. Halona has put out three melons so far and has one left on the vine. Ambrosia has put out one melon and has two on the vine. The Ambrosia melons are small and the ones left are pretty green still. They may or may not have time to ripen. The Halona melon is almost ripe. So this is the second year I haven't been impressed with Hannah's Choice. I won't grow it again. I will grow Halona. The jury is still out on Ambrosia.

When I cleaned out the cukes I found all the plants dead except one small one trying to resist the wilt. Go plant. I miss my cukes. Cross Country resisted the wilt better than Calypso, but Calypso put out so many cukes early on that its yield was probably better over all. They are both nice cukes. I might keep them both. I'm glad I way over planted cukes this year as I had very few to spare. I did get all the pickles made that I wanted. I just wanted the fresh cuke season to last longer.

Once they were pulled out I put in a cover crop of mixed peas, vetch, and oats. I'm going to have to figure out where my garlic is going to go. If it is here, I'll have to turn it under in September. But maybe I'll put it where one of the two sisters plantings are. They ought to have been pulled out by then.

I have been neglecting my chard. I'm supposed to pick it every two weeks. But this hadn't been picked for weeks and weeks. I did have one small harvest last week, but not much. Just enough for my pizza. So I picked it all down to what you see here.

This is what was taken off. Over nine pounds. I really need to pick more often. Nine pounds is hard to get rid of. Four pounds is easy. I'm hoping my townhouse mates want most of it to freeze. They would like it frozen, but I'm not sure they are up to processing 7 1/2 pounds. I kept 2 pounds for myself for the next week. My beans seem to be done. My broccoli has slowed down. So I'm in need of veggies to eat again. Chard will fill the gap.

Warm Weather Crops Getting Planted

My tomato transplants were ready to be planted. Their roots had made it to the bottom of their newspaper pots. They had been hardened off for a week. They were about 6"-7" tall. It takes about four weeks for me to get tomatoes to transplant size. Most people like bigger plants at about 8 weeks old - twice the age of mine. But I've had good luck with these and to be honest I'm pretty lazy. I like to put out transplants young. I have to pot up less. I have to take care of them for a shorter time. So most transplants get about three weeks before planting out. The tomatoes get spoiled and at three weeks are potted up to 4" tall newspaper pots. But that is as much as they get.

I had three transplants. One is for a friend. One is a back up. This solitary one was planted in my garden. I probably won't be able to eat any of them. I still can't eat the solanums, but you never know. And my townhouse mates will be happy to eat them. If I find taking care of it makes me sick, I'll have my townhouse mates take care of it. But it would just be so sad not to have it. I gave it all the loving care I always do when planting. Fertilizer, bone meal, and lots of crushed eggshells mixed about a foot to two feet down in the soil. Then I removed the bottom leaves and planted it deeper. Not quite as deep as the fertilizer I put in but the roots will grow down there and find it. Tomato roots get very deep and convincing them to go down will help keep blossom end rot away since they will have a steady moisture supply deep down.

The tomato plant is in the mustard bed. The mustard plants are getting bigger, but I swear some of them are thinking of bolting already. They are a spring crop and we did have some really bad hot weather way too early in the season. I really hope my experiment to get mustard seed works. If not I'll collect whatever I get and save seed to plant next year.

Then I wanted to plant the cukes and zukes. First I had to pull all the 3' high cilantro out of the bed. It covered the whole bed. I made my compost pile a foot deeper.

I took two days to pull it all out and prepare the bed as usual. Then I invited Kronos, my daughters dog into the garden with me. I wanted to see how easily he would be trained to the garden. I had my other dogs garden trained. They learned to walk on the paths and leave the beds alone. But Kronos likes laying on plants over laying on the mulch. And as all dogs, they don't stick to the paths normally, so the prepared bed had doggie tracks all over it and a few onion plants may never recover. I'm thinking the effort of training and the squashed plants aren't worth getting him partially trained by the time he leaves. Too bad. It is nice having a dog with you when you garden. And dogs would always rather be out in the garden with you than inside.

But I finally got the cucumbers planted. I thought about building a bamboo trellis like normal. But the tomato cages are not being used. So I figured they were good enough and so much easier. And they can grow as the plants grow. I'm hoping to have twelve plants of each Calypso and Cross Country. If they don't germinate I have more seed that I can start indoors. In front I planted four zucchinis. Two Black Raven and two Costata Romanesca. The Romanesca aren't really bush plants they travel which makes them a bit of a pain in a bed. But I'll try to train them to loop around the bed if I can.

I want to try to keep them contained here since I want to try something new this year. The vine borers always take the plants down. They come out at about 1000 degree days, which is just a measure about how hot it has been. As I write this we are at 345 which is not at all normal for this time of year. Since we have had so much hot weather in the spring, the borers will be out a lot earlier than normal. Usually I get a decent harvest before the plants are taken down in mid to late August. This year that won't be the case. The borers will come early, probably three weeks early, but I couldn't plant the zukes any earlier than normal because we have had some cold weather later too. So I'm going to try to cover them with a row cover just before we hit that magic number. I'll have to hand pollinate every day if I want more than baby zucchini. But for several weeks they will be covered. Maybe I'll actually get zucchini this year then. Maybe.

Don't you just love the little mint corner. The borage is going to take over and is self seeded. The forget-me-nots that I planted last year are blooming. And those pretty jumpups are a gift from the soil that was put in by the landscapers. One popped up last year. I left it to bloom and go to seed. This year I have about six of them scattered around. They are different from the ones that I brought in my compost from my old place. Those are the bicolored ones. They are purple and yellow. These are straight purple. Both lovely in their own way. I wonder what they will look like if they ever cross.

Whoohoo! Yes just picture me doing a little dance. I found this solitary one a couple of days ago. Now it has friends. I'm thinking I'll get my first peas this coming week. I'm really hoping. Peas. YES!

And here they are. If you look at the peas all along the back you will see there are three different heights. One planted in February, one in March, and the last in April. The April sowing didn't have good germination. I think there were too many hungry insects active by that time (in a normal year the insect timing would be early May). So that planting didn't work out too well. But I'm trying to stagger the harvest so they will last longer into the summer. I don't know if it will work. Peas hate the heat. But I'll find out this year. If it does extend my harvest it will be worth it.

Odds and Ends

The weather has been very drippy and cloudy, but I did find a nice time between rains to get the second half of the bean trellis up. I did get a few drops, but nothing soaking. I elected to leave the radishes in place and erect the trellis over them. I did have to take one out as the post was going in at that spot. I prepared 3/5 of the bed, but the other section under the radishes will have to wait until they are pulled.

I tried to take a photo, but you never have your camera out when you need it. I might not have too much of a problem with squirrels this year. They seemed to be less prevalent than last year. Today I found out why. The mockingbird chases them out of the yard. The Squirrel was over by my strawberries (but not in them) and the mockingbird dived bombed him and made a really loud screeching sound that didn't sound like a bird at all. The squirrel was chased all the way down the fence until it disappeared into the maple tree. I'm really liking this mockingbird. I usually get the sparrow hoard often in my garden in the spring. They will rip at anything, but especially the lettuce and the peas. I didn't even cover my peas this year and I have no damage. So a lot of nice things. I'm sure the worms and slugs will be worse as I'd guess the other birds eat these too.

Later in the morning I went out to do just a touch of weeding in the break between drizzles. I noticed that my baby Asian greens bed had a lot of bolting plants. All of the Fun Jen and the earlier planted white stem bok choy. The early planted tatsoi was way too crowded. So I went and fixed the problem. Now I just have the Shanghai bok choy and the happier tatsoi in this side.

The other side was planted later and seems to be growing well. Oh I had to rip the choy sum out of the other side as it really bolted prematurely in the earlier heat. The stems were too tough. Maybe the choy sum in this section will be better. It was planted after the worst of the heat was over. And has grown well in the last two wetter and cooler weeks.

What I've been picking is more than me and my townhouse mates could eat. I'm really hoping to find someone in the neighborhood to take the extras. I hate throwing good food on the compost pile. But there is always an over abundance at certain times. It just happens. So I sent an email out and hopefully I'll get some responses to my excess produce. Either that or the poor tatsoi is fated to meet with the grass clippings in the compost.

And last but not least, the tomatoes were potted up. I should have done this days ago, but I just didn't. But now they are happier. When it gets sunny I'll bring them outside more often. They were out on Monday soaking up the sun as was the basil right next to them. I have to say. It is weird not having trays and trays of tomatoes and peppers indoors at this time of the year. I'm so used to them. But I potted up just three plants. One Cherokee Purple for my garden. One Market Miracle for a friend. And an extra just in case one of them dies.

Potting Up

The sweet potato slips were looking good yesterday.

Their roots had grown quite long. If I waited anymore time I was afraid the roots would get tangled together and I wouldn't be able to separate the slips without breaking the roots. All of the slips had formed roots except one.

Which was convenient since the flat fits 12 4" pots. I have three slips of each variety. I'm expecting these to vine at some point and I'll get the slips that go into the garden from them. Sweet potatoes are usually planted late May to mid June around here. It really depends upon the weather. I was looking at one study from NH and the year it was so cold (2009 I think) they planted on June 26th. That wouldn't give them much time to grow, but they did get a harvest.

The sweet potatoes that are in water waiting to get slips are just starting to sprout this week. I might only get one sweet potato from each variety sending out slips, but one is enough and doing it with three will give me a good sense of my success to failure rating for supermarket sweet potatoes.

I also made a whole flat plus a little more of soil blocks. The flat is the smaller Asian greens. I tried direct seeding them in the circle garden which is the warmest spot. I was hoping things would be warm enough for them to grow. They are still very small. The indoor transplants that were planted three weeks later are huge. These have been in the ground for about 6 weeks. They germinated, but are slow. So I sowed a whole flat to plant up the other side. I'm wondering which side will produce first.

The other 12 blocks were for my basil. I finally started the first of my warm weather plants. Next week the tomatoes will go in. And no I still can't eat them. I hold out little hope at this point, but if I can't my townhouse mates will still appreciate them. And I have a friend who grew one of my Market Miracle transplants last year. He has a yard with very little sun. I'd say he gets from 5-6 hours in the sunniest spot. It still produced decently. Not many varieties would. So I'll grow him another this year too.

Tomatoes and Spinach

As you saw in Harvest Monday my tomatoes gave me a lot. So on Monday I canned. And canned. And canned. 18 pints. My back hurt after that. I did both sauce and chopped tomatoes. I should have done the chopped tomatoes today, but I really wanted to get them off my counter.

I was thinking the tomatoes are out gassing something that irritates my lungs. I have asthma and was doing fine before the massive line of tomatoes on my counter. Though it is probably the ragweed starting to bloom. But for now I'm keeping the mass of my tomatoes down.

And what I do have is being kept in air tight containers. I let them breath once a day outside. It has helped a lot, but not totally gotten rid of the issue. So I'm guessing ragweed and tomatoes were an issue. Interestingly enough the cooking tomatoes don't bother me. It is whatever they put out when they ripen that is irritating.

This morning I picked some more tomatoes. Many were cracking due to the rain. I picked all that were in the section closest to the path. Most were turning already. Just a couple were still green. And I got rid of all of the Heinz no matter what bed it was in. They had mostly all turned. So I ripped out 12 plants and have 5 left in this bed and 4 (mostly cherries) in another bed. This bed will be my spinach bed this fall. I planted up the empty section. I may or may not plant up the rest this fall. I may wait for it to be the spring spinach. But then again I may just make it some overwintered spinach. I'll figure it out later.

I put in three types. Gigante D'Inverno (2 rows), Olympia (three rows), and Space (two rows). I'm hoping they can all produce this fall and over winter. Especially the first one since it has winter in its name.

I'm Losing It

My counter that is. Tomato season is in full swing here. Right now the tomatoes own half of my counter. I've got Cherokee Purple, Purple Calibash, Market Miracle, Amish Paste, Sungold, Black Cherry, and the massive pile of Heinz in the bowls.

Cherokee Purple left, Purple Calibash right

Cherokee Purple continues to be my favorite of the large tomatoes. Purple Calibash isn't bad, but it isn't as prolific, not quite as good tasting, and a lot more weirdly shaped. It may be fun seeing weirdly shaped tomatoes, but using them is much more of a pain. Smooth more normal shaped tomatoes are easier. This year the Cherokee Purples in the back row just aren't growing as well as they did last year. The plants just stopped growing at about four feet. Last year you couldn't stop the vines. I don't know if it was being behind another row of tomatoes and not getting enough sun (which I won't do next year). Or if it is the weather. But I hacked back one that was accidentally put in the front to keep it in bounds and it just can't be stopped. It wants to keep growing. It just doesn't have the cage for it. So for next year I'll keep Cherokee Purple and give the boot to Purple Calibash.

Usually Market Miracle is 8oz and more perfectly round

My Market Miracle tomato is my one red tomato in the garden that isn't a paste. It isn't particularly early. Cherokee Purple tends to produce before it does. But it seems to always produce for me no matter the weather. No matter if it is hidden behind other foliage or in the shade of the neighbor's fence, or getting rained on all year. Unlike the Cherokee Purple, it is still growing strong and setting new fruit. It is right up against the fence and in the back row of tomatoes. Yet still it produces. I've found it tolerates partial shade better than any other tomato I've grown. It grew well this year during the heat. It grew well during the summer of '09 when we had constant cool weather and rain (that year it was the best producer). So it continues to have a place in the garden. It tastes good, but isn't up to the standards in taste of a tomato like Cherokee Purple. I have a neighbor I gave one transplant to. He planted it in a place which I'm guessing gets about four hours of sun. It is setting tomatoes. Not quite like mine, but still he will have home grown tomatoes this year. Then again Laura is growing it and it hasn't set yet for her. But for me it works.

Not quite ripe Amish Paste left, Heinz right

The two paste tomatoes I'm growing are Amish Paste and Heinz 2653. The Amish Paste tastes fabulous just like last year and is just now getting started as it is a pretty late producing paste. As you can see it is a huge paste tomato where Heinz is a very small one. Amish Paste just tastes too good to get rid of even though it is such a late tomato. I'll grow a couple plants again next year.

The Heinz I'm not happy with this year. The taste is just so-so even though last year it was one of the best tasting tomatoes. If I had another paste tomato that acted like it, I would replace it in a heartbeat. But I keep it because of what you see above. The plants are almost finished producing and it is still early August. It is a super early determinate paste. Here that is good. All we need is a bad year and getting the tomatoes to ripen would be challenging. In a good year I have time for succession planting or at the very least a cover crop. I worry about it though. It seems very susceptible to the leaf spot we have around here (I'm guessing septoria leaf spot, but who knows, tomato spot diseases are numerous and hard to distinguish). So would it really survive in a bad year? It is always the sickest tomato plant in the patch. Anyone know of a really good early determinate paste? It actually isn't the determinate that matters. It matters if it sets its fruits all at once. For instance Bellstar is an early determinate paste, but it ripens fruit over a long period, which isn't what I want when I can. I might try Grandma Mary's since at least it is early. I think I need yet another paste tomato trial next year. I'll probably put in Heinz again next year, but not so many. I'll give it another chance.

Let The Canning Season Commence

OK so I've already canned some jam. It really didn't count as they weren't my peaches and they weren't my blueberries. I had to buy them at the farmers market. But yesterday I canned my first tomatoes of the season. I had piles of Heinz on my counter and since I'd just picked piles more, they had to go. Last year Heinz was my favorite paste tomato. It was so delicious. This year they are just OK. Nothing special. The Amish Paste this year has them beat by a mile. At least to me. I had some neighbors over last night for dinner and their little girl kept eating the Heinz. I was saying they weren't the best and not quite ripe (I'd used all the ripe ones for sauce making). But she disagreed with me. I'll have to bring over some real tomatoes for her this coming week.

So at 9:30am I started washing tomatoes. Then I quartered them and tossed them in my huge stock pot. I only cooked them enough to soften them. To sweeten up the pot since the Heinz weren't so good this year, I put in some Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple, Purple Calibash, and some cherry tomatoes too. The cherries especially can sweeten up a sauce. I don't want to use too many since it would take forever to boil them down. They are very moist compared to a paste tomato.

Then I ran them through my Victorio strainer. The gadget is ancient and the screens tend to rust. I would really like a new one that doesn't leak all over and make me clean the rust off of it before I use it. I'm sure someone makes one with a screen with good stainless steel.

I had a nice photo of the sauce boiling down on the stove, but almost every photo I took of that area was blurry. That corner of the kitchen tends to be dark. I used two pots to start with. I could have fit it all into my 12 quart pot. I think I had about eight to nine quarts total, but they boil off and thicken faster if I use more surface area. I boiled until the sauce started to get thick. Sadly the jars weren't ready yet. I had the canning water boiling; the lids boiling; the sauce ready. But the dang dishwasher needed 15 more minutes to finish up. It is how I sterilize and heat up my jars.

But when they got out I started filling them up. You might notice some white powder in the bottom of the jars. That is citric acid that I use. A lot of people use lemon juice but I never have. So this time I tried it with one jar. I added it to the bottom of the jar. Then ladled in the hot sauce. With a sterile spoon I mixed it up and tasted it. Well it tasted like lemon juice to me so the rest were made as usual with citric acid. And it will be interesting when I get that jar randomly. I don't know which one it is. So something is going to taste a bit like lemon juice.

Then they were canned. They were put in at about 12:15 as you can see on my clock. 35 minutes later they were done. I always wondered how long it took me to do a batch. Now I know. If I time the dishwasher right it takes just over three hours.

It is a lot of time, though I'm not really working except for the washing and straining. But an hour's worth of real work for seven little jars. Sometimes I think I'm a crazy person. Sometimes it is better not to look at the numbers. I've got a lot more tomatoes to can yet this year.

Seeing Red - And Purple

The first of the Heinz tomatoes are starting to ripen. These should get bigger, but I think they set too many fruit and the plant just can't handle it.

The first Cherokee Purple tomato is starting to ripen. So the tomatoes have liked the heat even if I've hated it.

Working in the Rain

Yesterday it was raining on and off and I figured I'd been out in the garden enough so I wrote yesterday's blog post. Well somehow I got outside again. OK I know how it happened. I knew the day before I needed to pick the broccoli, but I had forgotten. So out I went. As I was walking by I noticed this.

The first cucumber of the year. So yesterday had the first cucumber and the first tomato. Finally my cucumbers are setting and sizing up. It took them forever. I hope I'm inundated in a week. Maybe.

Then for some reason I decided to check on the front yard and saw this. The first strawberry on my Seascape everbearing strawberries was ripening up.

I think I'll pick it tomorrow. But since I was starting to get ripe strawberries I had to put on some protection for it. I covered the row with bird netting. It isn't firmly attached, but I hope it is enough to keep the pests away.

Back in the back yard I decided I had to deal with the compost pile finally. It was getting a bit out of control after taking the favas down earlier in the week. I keep the compost behind the reed fencing. It is a pallet compost and has four compartments. The working compost didn't have a pallet in front of it since I'm still missing one. So I moved the pallet from one of the leaf compartments. I could pile most of the leaves in that section into the other leaf compartment. So we haven't quite gone through half the leaves I collected last fall, but we are getting there. The interesting thing is the leaf pile itself is warm. Not hot like a real compost pile, but it is breaking down quickly enough to generate some heat.

Then today I finally got around to finishing the tomatoes. The bottom leaves have all been removed. It was way too windy to spray (with Serenade) and way too hot to be covered head to foot and wear a mask so I'll do that tomorrow morning. I wonder how many times I've said that so far this week. It is always hard to find the perfect time to spray. But I'll have to whether it is windy or not tomorrow. The bacterial spot on the peppers is picking up again. They really need to be sprayed once a week and not once every two weeks.

I had one more chore that I did today and that was tying up my melons. I put them in slings of netting. I hope it works. I didn't have any pantyhose like EG uses, but I have lots of netting and string.

Rain, Rain, Rain

We are finally getting a good rain today. So far only a third of an inch, but I'm hoping for at least another third. So once again I put off spraying. Not good. But we do need the rain. Tomorrow sometime I have to get to it especially with the rain spreading disease around.

But there was one thing I could do in the break in the rain. I could get my carrots planted. Yesterday I made carrot tapes to plant out. I was asked how I make them so I'll show you.

I take some toilet paper and cut it into four strips the long way. Then I put on dots of glue every inch and put one seed on each dot. I hang them up to dry on my laundry lines in the nursery. Granny likes seed mats that are made from paper towels, but I like doing them in rows better as I find them easier to plant.

I measure out rows four inches apart and put down the tapes. Then I make sure they are barely covered with fine soil. The covering is why tapes are easier for me. I have trouble covering a whole area evenly with fine soil. But a narrow row is simple. If you leave part of the paper out of the soil it will act as a wick and dry everything out. Especially in the heat we have been having. After they are covered I tamp them down.

Then I cover them with burlap. Usually I'd water well after this, but with the rain before and after there was no need. In fact I had to hurry to finish as I was getting rained on at the end. Everyday I'll water the burlap a couple of times at least if it is hot and sunny out. And I'll check every day after Tuesday to see if there is any sign of germination. If there is I'll take the burlap off. But until then the burlap will shade and protect the soil and help them to get up. I ought to use boards at this time of the year, but my soil has a lot of damping off issues, so I'm going to stick with the burlap if I can.

And while I was out I saw this little gem. My first Sungold tomato is ripe. No other plants are showing any sign of ripening. Last year I harvested my first tomato about 10 days later than this, but the plants were put in about three weeks later than I planted this year. And last year I had many of the varieties come ripe at once. I think last year's heat really drove them to produce quickly.

Oh and yes I ate it right after its photo was taken. It was yummy. Not as good as later ones will be, but still quite good. I can't wait until I have so many I can't eat them all. I'm hoping that won't take too long.

Today's Work

I went out in the morning to finish cleaning up the tomato plants. I couldn't however. It had rained last night and the plants were still soaking wet. So that and the spraying will have to wait. Hopefully tomorrow will be drier. At the very least it is going to be in the 70s all day tomorrow so I can always do it in the afternoon if I have to.

While I was out I did a little hand pollinating of both the zucchini and melons. Then I picked some chocolate mint. I decided it was big enough that I could dry it. And indeed it filled up my dehydrator just fine. I put it outside to dry. I have an outlet by my front door. The scent of the mint wafted into the house all day long on the wind. What a wonderful small.

Then I decided if I couldn't work outside in the garden because of the dampness. I'd go into the nursery and finally pot up my broccoli. The plants were getting really crowded in their little blocks.

They were much happier in their new newspaper pot homes. As soon as these are ready to be planted I'll rip out the old broccoli, which despite the heat is still giving me some good side shoots.

Since my hands were dirty, I made a whole flat of soil blocks. Then immediately filled them all up. I put in five rows of a kale mix. I put one seed in each block. I only need about 18 plants, so the thirty blocks should be more than sufficient. I was afraid of doing more than one seed though since it was a mix. I might pull out the weaker looking ones and end up all the same variety. Or I might leave some of the weaker ones and find out that they were actually week seedlings. I think before these get planted I'll be able to tell them apart a little bit more. At least I'm hoping. I haven't a clue what kind of kale is in the mix.

There are twelve rows in a whole flat (6 blocks per row). So for the next three rows I put in some bok choy. I don't get big ones during the heat, but little tiny ones will grow. They are so cute when they get pulled. They won't grow nearly to the size as in the spring or the fall.

The last four rows were lettuce - Red Sails, Deer Tongue, Little Gem, and Jericho. I propped the flat up so it would be close enough to the light.

In the middle of this somehow I got outside. Don't ask me how. I haven't a clue. But it was after I had made the flat of blocks, but I hadn't planted them up yet. I was probably thinking I needed to thaw out some of the seeds in the fridge. I know I did that. I have a tenancy to flitter from one thing to the next before the first one is finished. It is how I go out into the garden for 10 minutes and end up there for hours.

Anyway I noticed the ends of the tomatoes were dry. So I started to clean the first couple out. But sadly once I got to the third one it was still wet as it was closer to the middle of the jungle. So once again I went back inside. I'll get to it tomorrow. I know I want to spray now, but really we will have some rain in the forecast for the next couple of days so I ought to hold off until Saturday anyway. That way it won't get washed off.

Lunch was a very simple meal. Some lettuce with homemade French dressing. Some carrots. I didn't even bother to chop them up. Some left over grilled snap peas from last night (they are amazingly good cold the next day). And some cheese. I was going to eat my zucchini lasagna for lunch but I decided to have leftovers for dinner. I'll eat the lasagna and my hubby will eat some pulled pork.

In the afternoon I made some little slings for the melons out of bird netting. The melons really need support soon. I'll get it up in the next few days. And still to go this afternoon I have to make some seed tapes for the carrots.