Currently 96 degrees: projected high of 101 and low of 73
Tomatoes in the patio bed look terrible and have already stopped setting fruit, so I pruned them back rather severely and got rid of the cages. Maybe they will survive and put out new growth, and maybe they won't, but since they aren't producing, I haven't lost much. Most of them were volunteers that came up in locations that were probably too close to the concrete blocks containing the raised bed, and I'm assuming that their roots got cooked once temperatures started to rise. However, the two plants I purchased and set in primo locations are also suffering, with much more dead and dying than healthy foliage, and I'm not sure how to explain those. The only healthy tomato in the yard is a Roma volunteer in another location.
The water leveler in our lower pond malfunctioned, causing it to overflow, and we pumped out the excess water for our artichokes, some of which are looking very droopy. I have been careful to deep water them regularly, so it may be that they are just too heavy for their stems. I like to admire their flowers more than I like going to the trouble of preparing them for consumption, so I didn't harvest any, and that may have been a mistake.
I'm still picking quite a few bush beans, mostly purple ones, but don't expect those to last much longer. Several sunflowers have opened up, although the tallest (estimated 10 feet high!) hasn't. The hollyhocks have pretty much finished blooming, and I'm working on cutting those back and saving the seeds.
The kumquat we planted last fall is not happy. It has lost most of its leaves, although there is some new green growth. I think its root system hasn't gone deep enough to tolerate waiting a week between waterings, so I'm trying to remember to give it a bucket or two of pond water every day.
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