Dog Days

It has been unusually hot here in Sewanee, like most other places this summer, but it has started taking it's toll on the garden. The tomatoes don't even seem to like this heat and many of them are rotting on the vine. According to my garden-loving great aunt, that's because they have had inconsistent watering. With school in session now, I hope to get out there and water more regularily in the morning. This really is one of my favorite things to do. I just find watering the garden so relaxing. It is not relaxing however with 2 kids nagging about how hot it is and asking every 5 seconds if we can leave. So today after I dropped the kids at school, I spent about an hour in the garden alone. It was slightly cooler and so nice. I re-staked some of the tomato plants so the ones that are still doing well could keep producing. RB says that tomatoes will keep growing taller as long as they have something to grow on, so I made sure some of the taller plants had a cage nearby to cling to. We may want to consider stacking some cages to let them keep going. Many of them that look scraggily at the bottom actually have nice growth and new flowers on the ends. The cherokee purple are so pretty and I hope the tiny sunsweets keep producing, they are such a treat!

I also weeded the strawberry patch as we have new fruit and flowers and the plants are thriving and sending out new runners. I'm so excited the ones we transplanted from our home garden seem to be doing so well too. I'm not sure how much fruit we'll get from them, but it's fun even to find one strawberry and eat it warm from the plant. I also de-flowered the basil and most of the cilantro. I got stung by a bee while doing the cilantro so I sort of stopped mid-way and moved on to watering. Most of the cucumbers are still producing flowers but sadly the squash plants are getting eaten by something. The ones on the far ends still seem to be alive and may have a flower or 2.

While there I was pondering what we might want to start planing for the Fall. We have some open spaces now so I'm going to go look in our garden books about what crops might be good to start now. Any ideas? I'm thinking pumpkins! :)