Hot Friday. More tomatoes. Hummingbirds.

Back into the 90s today.  We are looking forward to next week when the temperatures will back off to the high 70s and low 80s.  We will be able to turn off the air and open the doors again.  I don't have much planned for the gardens today.  I plan to wait a bit because the hummingbirds are feeding heavily this morning.  We saw four or five visits--I say visits because we can't really tell the individuals apart.  I wonder if some are migrating through and feeding up for the rest of the journey.  We saw only the little female until about two weeks ago and she came in the early morning.  One of the bloggers I read regularly wrote about the sudden appearance and disappearance of hummingbirds at her feeder.  She lives considerably north and west of us.

Well, I said it wasn't planning on much in the gardens.  However, I found more ripe or near ripe tomatoes than I thought I would.  I may have enough for another batch of stewed tomatoes.  While I was collecting them and a couple of peppers I  trimmed a couple of the tomato plants.  They are getting way out of control.

Foggy Thursday. Lazy gardening day. Lemon balm. Bees, hummingbirds, goldfinches.

I don't know how much I will get done in the gardens today.  I will wait to gather anything until the fog lifts.  I do have tomatoes to stew--not many but I would rather do a small batch than loose the very ripe ones.  I think I saw a Super Sauce ready to pick.  I hadn't planned on it but I got the lemon balm volunteers repotted and brought inside.  All of the rosemary, lavender, and bay are fine--didn't need to water.  I thought the lemon thyme should also be pulled from the gardens and put in a pot for winter.  It is looking a bit ragged--too much shade for it and maybe too much competition from the sage.  And I should make a decision soon on whether I want to take cuttings from the mints.  The bees are very active as are the hummingbirds (and yes we have at least 3 visiting frequently) and goldfinches.  They all appear to be stoking up for winter.  do they know something we don't.

This story appeared on one of our news programs last night.  The anchor asked the same question we have here for some time: why are guys paid so much for so little?  I know the theory.  We hear it often.  To get top talent in this market they have to pay top rates.  However, I wonder what the criteria for judging "top talent."  Those benchmarks are far from obvious.

Less hot Wednesday. Hibiscus seed pod. Spearmint. Grapefruit mint. Tomato hornworm.

The weather people say the temperature should be 13 degrees lower than yesterday.  However, they posted a 98F for this area so an 85 is still too hot to do much outside.  I have already collected tomatoes and a handful of purple cayenne peppers, two of which had gone from the purple to the red stage.  I found a seed pod on the hibiscus a few days ago and picked it today.  It was brown and just beginning to open.  It is drying now in a small bowl.  I have three trays of spearmint and four of grapefruit mint drying now.  Still have to water things but by then I will be ready to call the outside gardening quits for the day.  I want to check out my lavender, bay tree, and rosemary bushes for watering.  Those are all inside now.

I found a tomato hornworm just a bit ago--the first one in a couple of years.  I had just finished spraying a couple of plants for powdery mildew and checked over a pepper plant to find that big, bad boy.  My usual procedure is cut the pests in half and let them decompose in the garden.  But I took a second look and saw a whole bunch of little white grains on it and something clicked in my mind.  I checked up on line and sure enough.  My pest had met his pest, a braconid wasp, and would soon be hatching out more wasps.  I left him alone to continue his function as wasp incubator

This story has dominated the news here as school has started.  Neither Mom nor I can remember any time when we were growing up that we had cancelled or shortened school days because of heat--and very few because of snow.  And most of the schools we attended didn't have air conditioning either.  Now we can't imagine life without.

Hot Tuesday. Two new nasty bugs in the gardens. Cucumbers done. Peppers.

We are in day 2 of the heat wave.  The temperature is 80 on the patio and it isn't yet 8:30am.  (I won't be posting this until much later.)  I have already picked tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers and watered all the containers.  The cucumber plants looked pretty bad so I took them out.  They are done for the season.  The four cucumbers of a size to pick will go in salads for the rest of the week.  I have a number of peppers to core, slice and package for freezing.  Late last week I found something had chewed up my peppermint cutting.  Most things don't bother any of the mints and it took me a couple of days to find the little monster--tent caterpillars.  I guillotined about a half dozen and today I didn't find any new ones.  The plant is looking much better.  Then trimming back the tomatoes I found another strange beetle (strange to me, anyway).  A quick Google search and I identified it as a stink bug.  I will have to look at how to "discourage" these nasty pests.

I can't say this any better, except perhaps to remark that to "make war without going to war" is a pretty cowardly way to go.  So much for "land of the brave."

Sunny Monday. Tomatoes, peppers, peppermint, pineapple sage.

Since we expect highs in the low 90s I have already been busy in the gardens.  Last night, after stewing some and putting more in big chef salads, I had three small slicing tomatoes left.  I now have a bowl slicers and a bowl of cherry tomatoes, and have marked a couple of the sauce tomatoes for possible picking tomorrow.  I have pineapple sage and peppermint in the dryer.  Summer is definitely on the wane though the forecast temperatures this week and next would argue with that notion.  The stewed tomatoes are in the pot in the fridge ready for me to package for freezing.  I have some pictures but haven't downloaded them yet.  I will post them soon.

Our society seems to be orgiastically enthusiastic about technology.  However, spending this amount of public money and several years on a futile effort to merge two huge and complicated systems.  Sometimes simple is better and the technology is not simple.  It is just expensive.

These boys seems to be very determined to get us more embroiled in this mess than we are now.  To date I have seen nothing that comes close to proving who used the "chemical" weapon.  Considering the myriad of competing and violent interests contending in Syria, maybe we should avoid the quicksand.

Sunday. Getting ready for the heatwave. Cute indoor hanging gardens.

We are watching the weather forecasts and planning for the heat to come.  Mostly we want to avoid cooking as much as possible.  So the menu for today and the next couple include two chef salads, a pasta salad, and cold sandwiches.  Tuesday we will look at what we will do for the next three or four days.  We're also debating when or whether to turn on the air conditioning.  We don't much like it but there are times when we are mightily grateful to have it.  Given how many 90 degree days we expect it may be necessary to turn it on soon rather than later.

I can see a number of tomatoes ready to harvest today.  I will keep a couple of slicing tomatoes for sandwiches and some of the cherry for salads.  Otherwise, I will stew the extra with the sauce tomatoes to freeze.  The heatwave will change when I do my gardening.  Usually, I spend an hour or so with the computer before going outside.  Now I will garden as soon as I have enough light to see what I am doing and put off the computer till later.  We will also do our weekly errands on the coolest days and as early as possible.

Now this is cute!!  But I don't think my landlord would appreciate most of it.

Well, I got the herbs I dried yesterday ground and, at the same time,  combined several jars of the same herbs to make some room and sense of what I had on the shelf.  The tomatoes are stewing nicely.  When they are done I will put the pot in the fridge till tomorrow when I will package them for freezing. I decided not to collect more herbs for drying today.  I will give that a rest and get another batch tomorrow.  I also cut the strawberry daughter plants off the runners connecting them to the mother plant and moved them inside under the grow light.  I will see how that technique does.  I had no success cutting the daughters off before trying to root them in a small pot.  I have another set in my strawberry "nursery" to root now.  Everything has been watered and just in time.  It was getting very warm out there and we decided to turn on the air.

A cool Saturday before the heat. Spearmint. Stevia. Grapefruit mint.

Nice and cool for now.  Expected high today is mid 80s.  I have spearmint in the dryer to get ground today.  Then I might see how much stevia I can cut.  Otherwise, I will be picking of newly ripe tomatoes each day.

I have already brought in the tomatoes, including a couple of the Super Sauce one of which weighs in at about half-a-pound.  I see three more that will be ready to pick tomorrow.  So I guess I will be stewing tomatoes tomorrow.  Right now the house smells of grapefruit mint.  Yesterday it smelled of spearmint.  That is a side benefit to drying the herbs--I get the dried herbs to use in the winter and the smell of it now.