Good morning to you all out there. The weather people are right today and that the temps will be in the lower 80s with lower humidity. We put the air on for the last two days. And we are back on a summer schedule for our errands--as early as possible to beat the heat. And I do the gardening early or late.

The more I read about the European e. coli outbreak the worse it appears. I wondered if the strain causing the outbreak was the same as the one we are so familiar with over here. Evidently not. And they are having the same difficulty we had trying to trace the source of the infection. The Spanish are very unhappy at the early finger pointing in the direction of Spanish cucumbers.

I just reviewed a comment I thought I should comment on. I was glad the writer liked my post. His French didn't bother me. I have no idea of how fluent his command of the language really is. I can get a general idea of what it means thanks to some intense tutoring almost 15 years ago preparing for the language translation test which was part of my (never finished) PhD program. I haven't kept up with it. He could have written in his native German and why he didn't I don't know. Why did I not post the comment? Well, the blog he listed as his seems to be a commercial debt relief site. As I noted before, my site is not commercial and I don't advertise for anyone.

Thanks, Lois. I am feeling better although I have to take things a bit slowly. I just transplanted my ginger mint and sweet mint to individual large pots and feel like I got hit by a steam roller. The ginger mint was trying to take over the bed already and I really don't want it crowding out the tomatoes. In the process I moved the melons to one of the large containers where I think they will be happier and restarted the cucumbers that simply didn't thrive where they were. My philosophy--if it doesn't grow well where you got it, move it. The temperature isn't going up very fast so I think I have plenty of time to accomplish what I want to get done. I often think I would really like a larger planting space but every time we talks about finding another place the costs/benefits simply don't come out in favor. I agree on the restaurants--you never know anymore. We have a couple of favorites and we have gone back to a traditional pattern--going out to eat is a special treat not an everyday expectation. And we expect an excellent meal we can't do better at home-- without the side of e. coli or salmonella or listeria.

Every now and then I come across a cute idea. Here is one that comes from the UK. Growing a garden in a spiral tube. And then I found this on care2 that has several ideas for using stuff you can't use for the original purposes any more.

Well, the gardening is done for the day. I got all of the petunias, marigolds, ageratum, and portulaca planted. Thankfully, before any were irreparably damaged by the prolonged period of neglect since this cold attacked me. I also got the new beans, and cucumbers started and the survivors of earlier plantings transplanted. And the two mints are in their new pots. I am bushed. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I will start the next stand of lettuce.