A little cloudy today, and according to the weather report a cold front is trying to work its way through this morning, but the low is 80°F and the high will be 98°F. Yesterday we broke a record for this year as it reached 101°F. With the northwesterly wind I feel cooler already! 🙂 Seriously, maybe tomorrow morning will be a teensy bit cooler, but that small of a difference won’t feel all that cool. I’m doing the same routine I’ve been doing.
I got excited when my weather app said tomorrow morning’s low was going to be 73°F, so I made plans to do spraying since it has been over a week for some. Then I watched my local weather, and the low tomorrow will actually be 78°F. My minimum temperature for safe spraying is 74°F, so I adjusted my plan to trimming the early blight off the older tomatoes and giving them a nutrient boost with Pennington Rejuvenate Plant Food for Tomatoes and Vegetables to help them fight.
After sorting out the weather and my spraying plans, I moved on to the garden. Today was a productive day. I was giving the tomatillos, India cucumbers, and Armenian cucumbers a half‑strength Miracle‑Gro boost when I saw a monarch sipping nectar from the vine by my Amish compost bin. I recorded a nice video with birds and garden noise in the background, but when I uploaded it to my YouTube channel I couldn’t hear it anymore and it wasn’t the same. I decided the first photo I took was best.
As soon as I finished watering everything, I went to open my shed and I encountered this tree frog on the outside door. It has been hanging around here since yesterday. I guess my shed is the perfect habitat to live and catch bugs. I named him Freddy (Fredericus) Frog. He hopped into my shed, and I hope he hopped out before I closed it at the end of the day a couple hours later.
After the Freddy encounter, I got my ingredients out for my calendula and hopefully the last of the squash transplants, as I am running out of space to put them. On Saturday I got the calendula pockets ready, and then yesterday I tilled the 4′ × 6′ bed that will eventually be a dedicated bed just for dill, but it will be sharing space with two butternut and one yellow squash. I put the butternut in the right and left corners on the north side, and in the center of the bed I put the yellow squash.
This area is where water runs, so I constructed the mounds to be 18 inches in diameter and about 3–4 inches in height. In the photos you can see the played‑out dill that I will chop up and put on the bed with some dill seeds too. If they grow, fine; if not, they will when I seed again in March. I have a plan either way.
The transplant recipe is 1/2 cup my compost, 1/2 cup Black Kow, 1 tablespoon Expert Organics 4‑4‑4, 1/2 teaspoon my finely ground eggshells, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Each transplant got a little chopped leaves and straw.
Once I was done with the dill bed for today, I did the super‑easy planting of the calendula pockets, which are 1′ × 1′. The soil recipe for this is 1/2 cup my compost, 2 tablespoons of Earth’s Best fast‑acting gypsum, and 1 tablespoon of spent coffee grounds. Mix that into the first few inches, then sprinkle the seed packet and lightly dust with soil. I watered using the misting setting.
The last thing I did was harvest. I bet you are going to say okra, and you would be partially right. I had a big haul today of peppers, eggplants, and my first Armenian cucumbers. They have a fuzzy outside. I picked them at about a foot long.
Most of the veggies will go to the drive‑thru food pantry, except the Armenian cucumbers, and I want to try these first. With everything accomplished today, I was ready to get in Pretty Blue and blast the AC on my 15‑minute drive.
Nature, gardening — what’s not to love. Enjoy your day.