I'm happy, for example, that we sprang for a whole house fan. It's still cool enough in the evening that we can manage to sleep. Very very few people here have air conditioning, and even then it's usually a window unit. Houses built in 1880 didn't have central heat and air as options, usually!
Add excessively sandy soil and no automated irrigation, and you've got a stressed garden and a stressed gardener. I'm worried that some of my bush beans won't bounce back.
They got extra water this evening, and I'll visit them again in the morning, but really crispy leaves cannot be a good sign.
Some of the squash blossoms are being blasted by heat early enough that they're not opening. I hope I'm not only going to get the ones that are already pollinated. Surely this heat snap will have an end?
Poor little blighted baby.
Even the potatoes, which are in mostly imported and therefore not very sandy soil, were not fully happy. I expect them to bounce back but I'm worried about that one in the front there.
Enough moaning from me about heat. I have some questions and some cuteness.
Ideas about what kind of insect eggs these might be? Horizontal groupings? You can click to make the picture bigger. There have been some leaf miners in the leaves, but I don't think this is them. Ideas?
The little piquin peppers are about the size of my little fingernail. So very very cute. I have no intention of eating them -- too hot, I'm sure -- but someone has to want to. And they're so cute!
Guesses as to what kind of squash this is? I know I wrote down the kinds, but I'm kind of stumped, and the field tagging was, erm, lacking this season.
Finally, the chicks are getting bigger. Still not quite big enough to mix it up with the older hens, but they're getting there.
Hope everyone else is nice and cool.
9 comments:
I'd say leaf miner eggs. The same kind I spent forever washing off of my spinach last spring. They do wash off easily, with a little rub from your fingers. And it looks like a turban squash to me.
I keep hoping for heat, our average temp this time of year is 27c(80f) and the best we have been getting is about 22c(70f). It is kind of strange to feel the hot summer sun with the air being so cool. I'm with Granny, those are leaf miner eggs. I have had my far share of them this year.
We've had an unusually mild July. It's been high 80's and low 90's and usually we're mid to high 90's. I'm not complaining! :) We had a whole house fan in the old house, but this house didn't have the roof joists to hold one right. We really, really miss it.
I second what Annie's Granny said: leaf miner eggs and turban squash.
Do you have access to a stables, even if you have to drive? I'm just concerned about that sandy soil. Anything you can do to add some tilth to the soil to hold some water in for weird hot days like these. Plus it would just help your plants in terms of nutrients too.
We installed a whole-house fan too at our 1915 house here. We're kind of in the same boat: never gets hot, ever...but yeah we get a lot colder than you ;) My husband hates the heat and me, I don't care, but air conditioners are just too wasteful.
Those chickies look plenty big! Then again I tend to integrate everyone fairly early here because, well, they have to learn sometime.
I hope your heatwave passes.
Leaf miner eggs and I third the vote that it is a Turban squash.
Sounds like you are definitely in the furnace at the moment. Our area is also very very mild (year round pretty much) so most everyone also does not have AC (us included) and when we do get an occassional bout of heat it is felt more keenly as a result. Sorry your gardens are getting clobbered by mother nature.
Those peppers are so beautiful. I hope we get a break in the heat today.
Yup, leaf miner eggs. The Marina di Chioggia squash is shaped like that as well, but I don't remember if it has stripes. It's hot here too, but fortunately my house catches a nice breeze in the evening so all I have to do is open the windows. Hope you garden survives the heat.
Thanks so much everyone. If it is in fact leaf miner eggs, that means I'm at least more prepared than I have been. I was experiencing them as just visitations from nowhere -- knowing what to look for means I can do my own share of leaf-rubbing.
Dan, you know I'd send you some heat if I could. Fortunately, today is a bit easier on us.
Ribbit -- my in laws were telling me how they just hadn't had any summer so far. I offered to trade. . .
El, thanks. Once the patio is laid and the yard cleaned up, we're going to make beds, of course. There is a race track nearby, so a dozen or so trips there ought to take care of some of the tilth problems, and I agree that they're behind most of my wilty sad plants. Nothing a few years of compost and manure won't help, though. Maybe it's time to try with the chicks. We figured the end of this month would be the ticket -- they'll be four months old and maybe it will take the big hens' attention off of the poor lowly lowest chicken.
Kitsap, it is kind of pathetic to whine when we usually have such simply lovely weather. It's just we're quite unprepared for either heat or cold, really. I don't think I planted any turban squash. . .
Michelle, I did plant Marina del Chioggia, so maybe that's it. Fortunately, time will tell, of course!
I feel much more cheery about getting out there today -- a big thank you to all.
I think Nelly says it best, "It's getting hot in here. So take off all your clothes. I am getting so hot, I'm gonna take my clothes off." With plenty of thumping bass.
It was brutal on Tuesday. We chose that day to go to the county fair in Pleasanton. I recommend saving that trip for one of our COLD summer days.
We were very disappointed by the sparse chicken exhibit. The judging must have gone on the first week, and all the prize chickens must have gone home. There were some really cute bantams, though. The rabbits were also charming, paws akimbo.
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