We are in the late summer doldrums around my house. You know how that goes, no energy to do anything after three in the afternoon. Strenuous work gets done in the early morning, or not at all. Watching the heat lightening in the sky night after night, after night. Wondering if it really is safe to plant those fall veggies, or if you really have a prayer of a chance of seeing them sprout.
So far the pak choy I planted in 4 inch pots a few weeks ago and ten days ago planted out into the garden look good and the broccoli I sewed directly into the same bed are coming up. The winter squash look dreadful with yellow leaves and some bare stalks are nevertheless putting out squash. The sweet peppers look puny also but continue to bear. I want to just snatch them all up and plant something else but it is still so hot. I did plant cauliflower seeds, two different types, a traditional and a Romanesque. We had terrible nematode and stink bug damage so we have solarized the fallow beds and further treated with a dilute household bleach solution.
I planted the sugar snap peas, and still have a sweet pea selection that also requires trellising. I have a large strawberry bed and if research bears out their tolerance of each other I may plant the peas in with them. We'll see. This season we decided upon an experiment with straw bales and we have a small pilot area with tomato plants and pepper seeds. Tomatoes are looking good and just setting flowers but the pepper seeds have failed to show at all. In spite of a continuous composting effort we never seem to have enough of that good stuff so I have high hopes for this bale project.
There are lots of good courses coming up at the Extension Service and I plan to attend a few just to see how others are faring. In addition to the veggie garden I want to convert my lawn into a more Florida friendly space that is attractive but requires less lawn maintenance. But right now that all sounds way beyond my ambition.
