Good morning to you all on this cloudy Thursday. I am not at all unhappy that it is cloudy--it should keep the temps down and the prospect for rain is not all that good. The longer the temperatures stay cool I can get more tasks in the garden done. First up on the list is fertilizing--with containers you have to feed the plants more often because the nutrients was out more quickly. My first two cherry tomatoes are nearly ripe. They were the first to appear so, of course, they are the first to ripen. New peppers and tomatoes are appearing daily so I have good reason to hope for a good harvest there. I noticed that my sunflowers are almost ready to pop.

Some may wonder why I always take the 'good' economic news with a ton of salt--here is why. Bret Arends at Marketwatch tells it like it is and, unfortunately, like it may be.

I just received the weekly e-mail from our favorite year-round farmers' market with an interesting item. They have 'columnar apple trees' available for sale. 'Columnar apple trees?' I queried. The nice thing about the internet is that you can find almost anything with only a few key strokes. So, me being me, I entered the phrase and found this site with a picture. The market is touting them for urban or suburban gardeners who want apple trees but are short on space. The trees top out between 8 and 10 ft and only 2 ft wide. But the fruit is full sized.

Had a funny (not ha! ha! funny) thought this morning as the news showed some more footage of that dust storm in Arizona a couple of days ago. They quoted long time residents' comments that they 'had never seen anything like it.' No s**t!! To have actually experience such an event in this country (and remember it) a person would have to be between 85 and 90+ years old and have lived in the Great Plains. It was called the Dust Bowl which was created by a natural dry cycle compounded by disastrous farming practices. For more info watch Black Blizzard the next time the History Channel shows it.

Ah!! My melon has started to bloom. Found one lonely little blossom as I busily pruned and staked in the containers this morning.

Jesse's Cafe Americaine provided this item to be filed in the 'Why In The Hell Isn't This Company Shut Down and its Executives In Jail!!!' folder. In his last year as Chicago's Superintendent of Police Jodie Weise held a news conference in which he threatened the leaders of Chicago's gangs with prosecution racketeering laws governing 'criminal enterprises' if the gang related shootings continued. From what I see the big banks should qualify for similar prosecution--the are criminal enterprises.