Monday.  The temperature hit 90F yesterday.  It was hot enough on the patio that I didn't do anything outside after noon.  Thankfully, we had rain in the evening and overnight so I didn't have to water anything.  We may get some scattered moisture today.  We'll see.  I did get some seeds started during the morning: chamomile, shiso, epazote, wonder berry, lavender and a couple of others.  Although my shiso in the gardens is doing nicely it hasn't turned purple.  I did plant, according to the package, the purple variety but it is staying stubbornly green.  The blue lake beans are starting to twine up the trellis.  I just wish we had had more spring before the summer slammed us.

Yippee!!  Found blossoms forming on the Biltmore and the Martio's Roma tomatoes.

Saw a little hummingbird seriously examining every part of our patio.  I am sure he is wondering when all that green stuff will bloom and if any of it will be edible.  Well, I can assure him that he will have a lot to pick from: bee balm, hyssop, cypress vine and hibiscus.  But it will be a while so he will just have to make do with what I can put in the feeder.

Tuesday.  Cooler today.  Thank goodness.  Took my usual little walk through the gardens.  The geraniums are blooming profusely and they are pretty.  I need to cut some more off the stevia and I think, this time, I will dry them.  I have spearmint I need to cut and dry as well so I should have a nearly full dehydrator.  I do need to get it out.

Our local farm market should open its season today.  We have been looking forward to it.  I will tell you about it later since I won't actually be posting this until much later today.  (Right now the time is a little before 6am.)

Our local news is featuring a story that was on the national news last night: another round of stealth price increases as manufacturers reduce the size of their packages without changing the price.  But Mom asked as reporters warned viewers to "watch what they buy closely" what we are expected to do about it.  The problem is that watching what we buy won't really do much for us except make us aware that we are being shorted.  Our only real options are to 1) do without, 2) substitute another manufacturer's product if a similar product is available, or 3) prepare it ourselves at home from scratch if possible.

Update on farm market opening:  they had a nice number of venders.  This market has grown considerably over the last few years.  I found a nice summer savory to augment the one I started inside and Mom bought almost three pounds of early asparagus.  We haven't bought asparagus from the supermarkets because none of it looks very good by the time it gets on the shelf.  We stopped buying canned and frozen because of the amount of inedible woody stems we found.  She is going to blanch and freeze most of it.