Fall planting season is officially upon us, but we're in the middle of a heat wave (110 yesterday) and it's still too hot to work in the garden for very long. I worked on getting the bermuda grass out of a couple of the raised beds today, and scattered seeds of larkspur and snapdragon. I'm harvesting a lot of Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers, and that's about it. We didn't get one bean from the lovely tent of pole bean vines- I think that I planted them too late. Likewise the corn was a waste of space and water- poor pollination and some kind of giant black mutated kernels. I won't bother trying corn again.
The only fall veggies I have planted to date are yellow squash and bush beans, which according to my Master Gardener chart, should be planted in August. A disappointing number of beans are up, probably because I used an old seed packet, but there are about a dozen squash plants scattered in the raised beds. We'll see how they produce- this is the first time I've actually tried them in the fall.
Home Depot had a good price on flowering hanging baskets, so I replaced three of the baskets hanging from the gazebo, which were looking pretty sad. I decided to leave the fourth one in place, because when I took it down, there was a hummingbird nest with two tiny eggs! I can put up with ratty-looking annuals for a few more weeks.
We're in the middle of another big project....taking out a 10-foot wide section of lawn on the north side of the house and putting in a pavestone patio, and enlarging the raised beds so they abut the patio. You can see the location above delineated by the two-by-fours and dead Bermuda grass. (Killing the grass was the first step) When completed, it should be a nice shady place to enjoy the garden, with a view of the raised beds and pond waterfall. Mike is doing most of the work...too hot for me to stay out there more than 5 minutes at a time! I don't see how he stands it, but he says it doesn't bother him.
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