Fall is here (supposedly)

It's late September and still blazingly hot....predicted high of 106 today. I wish it would cool off; I'm ready to get some serious work done in the garden!

The picture above shows several fairly healthy summer squash we planted in July. None of the bush beans planted at the same time survived. No squash yet; they have just started to bloom and we'll have to wait and see how the pollination goes. We're still picking several Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers each week. This week I planted two trays of snow peas, spinach, and four kinds of lettuce indoors. Maybe by the time they are ready to transplant it will have cooled down enough for them to survive. I also put out some broccoli and cauliflower transplants. This year I'm trying them in the raised beds instead of in our designated garden area. I haven't had too much luck with these in the past, and think it might be that flowering plants don't get enough sun in that area in the winter.

The peach and nectarine trees look terrible; the plum trees look okay, and the pear and apple trees look fine. We lost one of our newly planted peach trees this summer; you can see it in the foreground. I'm more worried about our mature peach tree by the gazebo- I'd hate to lose it. I'm not sure if it is salt burn or an iron deficiency, or a combination of both, but its leaves are really yellow. (Our deciduous trees don't tend to lose their leaves until sometime in December) It's getting deeply watered once a week, which is supposed to mitigate the salt problem. I gave it a dose of liquid iron supplement this weekend.

There's a nice second crop of zinnias that came up from the seeds of the ones that bloomed in June. An orange variety has been blooming nonstop since spring, and there's a fair amount of color from vinca and portulaca. Three of the older hibiscus planted around the pool may not make it, though. I'm not sure, but I think the drip system that goes to them was malfunctioning and I didn't notice they were in distress until it was too late. However, when I started cutting back the dead branches, I found green wood farther down the plant, so it's possible they could come back.

Mike finished installing the French drain and is now in the process of leveling the area where the new patio will go. He's debating about whether it is necessary to take out the dead, thoroughly scalped remnants of Bermuda grass first, or just put the sand base down on top of it. I don't think it will revive, but as it decomposes, it might cause the patio pavers to sink unevenly.