Sunny Saturday. Garden update: stevia, strawberries.

Good day, All.  Cool and dry.  I haven't checked outside yet but I will probably find a couple of tomatoes and maybe some peppers.  I should clip the spearmint--if my energy levels stay up.  I am slowly getting into my putting the gardens to bed mode.  I moved three of my strawberries, pot and all, into spots opened up when I took out the pathetic little chamomile and equally pathetic bee balm and stevia.  They all suffered from bigger plants planted too closely to them.  I will put in more chamomile next year but in a better position.  I have to pull one of the stevia I transplanted a bit ago.  It didn't survive.  The other three are doing nicely.  I may cut them back and move them inside for the winter.  I have wanted to make a stevia syrup but not right now.  With a pot of stevia inside I can experiment with that over the winter.

Hey, Kay,  glad you stopped by.  I can sympathize with both your frustration with the flowers you put in and with a feeling that I just don't want to do anything.  Part of my fall and winter program is to evaluate what went on in the gardens.  I don't always say what doesn't work: like the zinnias (they didn't bloom nicely and didn't play well where I had them), or the chamomile (my bad--I put it in a bad spot), or the squash (they just didn't produce this year), or the beans (damned beetles and they, like the squash, didn't produce).

And oh yeah!! this has been a very cool summer.  It reminds me of the summer about six or seven years ago when we got almost no tomatoes because it was so cold.  Has't been that bad this year.  I might agree with you on the climate change if it weren't for the two severe heat waves in China has experience this year, the heat wave in Siberia with temperatures 30 degrees above normal and wildfires worse than in living memory, and the heatwave in western Europe.  And the heat continues in the U.S. west.  We were watching the birds at the seed feeder this morning, thinking they were more intensely single minded in their feeding and, like you, wondered what that might mean for the winter.

I just mentioned the Russian wildfires.  Well, I found this update by way of Naked Capitalism.  They have gone from heat and fire to flood.  I told Mom this morning that sometimes the weather we have had gives me whiplash.

I have seen some pictures like these for other areas suffering drought and wildfires.  They do blow the mind away.