According to my plants, the weather is changing. Little eggplant plants that I raised from seed and that have been struggling all summer, now have blooms. The lantana is finally in full bloom, and some of the tomato plants are producing little tomatoes. I have lost some things to the heat this summer, but somehow I still have green beans, white squash, gorgeous Swiss Chard, and herbs that won’t quit.
We lost a cow, well we sold her! We only had a herd of 2 and a calf but it was one mouth too many to feed.
The dog still won’t do our whole walk yet. She’s learned to wait in the shade and walk backwards on the path to meet me. Apparently I’m not that smart.
I bought some seeds the other day in anticipation of being able to plant. I really do want a fall garden. Adding some compost and peat to some of my garden areas will really help the moisture retention and minerals. Unfortunately my compost has taken a hit because the cows are eating all the vegetable and fruit scraps, including banana peels. One of the things I’ve been doing this year is to spray (well really blast) everything off with water late in the evening. It seems to really help when you can change the temperature of the plant, soil, rocks, etc.
If the tomatoes come back we’ll have to put the fake owl out again, to keep the mockingbirds away. We have 7′ netting around the big garden to keep the deer out (the little garden has fencing). We’ve used the netting the past 2 years and it’s worked really well. We live in the city, but we seem to have a fair number of creatures here, and this year they’re all starving. We were greeted by a baby snake on the back porch this morning. The biggest problem with that is it must have a lot of siblings somewhere near here.
I’m planning a trip to Temple tomorrow to go to the new natural food store, an Asian restaurant, and my usual places. So hopefully I’ll have some updates for you.