I'm back in the garden again, having gotten a green light from my chiropractor to resume (cautiously) my regular activities. I find there's nothing quite like digging out the Bermuda grass from the raised beds supposedly reserved for vegetables and flowers, to channel feeling of stress into something productive. I haven't been able to do that for a while, and I'm enjoying it- albeit in five minute intervals, because the temperatures here are above 100 degrees most of the time.
My current project involves planting things in the bare spaces left when I pulled out the broccoli, lettuce, spinach, nasturtiums, and larkspur. I seeded a border of sweet allysum around the perimeter of a couple of the raised beds, and I finally found some honeydew plants at Summer Winds nursery. It's rather late to plant them, even as transplants, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm trying a new planting method I observed in San Diego in a community garden...digging wells around the plants rather than planting them in the traditional mounds. Theoretically, that ought to help keep moisture around the plant's roots, which is always a challenge with new plantings in hot weather. I did mound up the soil a bit right around the stem of the plant, so water won't collect next to it. (not that there is much risk of that this time of year!)
We picked the last of the apricots and early peaches, and several varieties of tomatoes are doing very nicely. Our old standbys of cherry, Roma, and Early Girl tomatoes are already bearing, and some of the new ones we're trying this year have nice-sized green fruit. I found a delicious recipe for fish with roasted cherry tomatoes here and served it with roasted broccoli (my favorite recipe for that here) For dessert we had apricots in orange juice (recipe I used here) As you may guess, I enjoy trying new ways to prepare the food that comes out of our backyard as much as I enjoy experimenting with new things to grow and different ways to grow them.
