I will once I get home.

I'm originally from northern Illinois, and gardening was MUCH easier back there. Dirt was black loam, not grey moondust. And it rained at least once or twice a week. I remember loving the sound of thunder and rain as I lay in my bed at night. I'd follow my grandmother around as she gardened, and it seemed so EASY.

Ummm, if your brain really is fried and you really are all wet . . . someone may have put out your fire . . .

Don't think so.

digitS'

Here's my soil thermometer from Sunday with a Brussels sprout in the background.

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The potatoes in my potato bag. They perked up a lot, later when the sun wasn't so high.

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My raised bed of potatoes. All of the potatoes actually sprouted above the soil, but two of them just withered away.

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My brassica.

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My Black Eel zuke. The dust you see in all of these pictures in rotenone.

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My 8-Ball zuke.

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And my garlic bed. If you look at my before picture in the Allium forum, my garlic last month looked tremendously healthy. It looks a lot drier and more yellow today than it does in these pictures.

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Now someone riddle me this. I lost my FIFTH canteloupe plant today, and I don't know how. No, I didn't misplace it. It's just gone. I direct sowed the last two. They started to come up, about a day apart. Then the younger one was chomped off at the soil line. That left the other one which was looking very healthy and green. Today I checked on it, and I found a hole. No plant. Just gone.

It couldn't have been an insect. The plants and the ground around them were dusted with rotenone. It couldn't have been a larger critter. They were under a hot hat, with a brick on the hot hat, and nothing was disturbed. It was like the little sprout was just beamed away.

This is so discouraging. I love melons! Maybe I should just make these beds my permanent garlic beds. I can probably fit 300 garlic plants in these beds, but it's the only thing that does well.

Definitely add mulch. I've got zucchini and yellow squash, a pumpkin, 5 different peppers and tomatoes, and sweet potato; all of them were really wilty with the heat until I covered the area with mulch, even just an inch or so of mulch helped enormously. Also, because of the way our yard is set up they only get about 4-6 hours of full sun in the afternoon. So far I have about six blossoms open on the zukes and a ton more getting ready on all three squash, lots of blossoms on the tomatoes and the super sweet 100s have baby tomatoes, there are peppers growing, and buds on the pumpkin. I'm using a shredded red cedar from either Lowes or HD, about $3-4 a bag, but I've also used Claybuster compost as a mulch with no problems. I need to get pics since I planted the veggies. They are all along the front of the retaining wall under the huge pine trees we have. Mulch and more shade are definitely going to help. They'll perk up in no time.

I tried brussel sprouts last year but planted them too late to get anything worth harvesting, then it got buried bent over and in the snow. I ended up leaving it and got pretty yellow flowers in the spring :-) - there's always a bright side to the learning process

Here is the area before we redid the backyard

and right after we put in the paver patio (but before the veggies) -

I know some really good gardening folks who treat grass clippings like they are magic. One would think that their garden is much too large to be mulched from their lawn but they only care about getting a thin layer down. Sprinkle, sprinkle here, sprinkle, sprinkle there - like Tinkerbell's pixie dust.

I've had problems with using mulches before (mice, slugs and getting the water thru to the soil, etc.) but doubt if there'd be any problem whatsoever with a thin layer. The "magic" may very well be shading the soil. That in itself should go quite a ways towards conserving moisture.

digitS'

Here's my second harvest of the season. (The first was some Tom Thumb lettuce grown indoors.) From left to right, Transylvanian, two Achatami, and Applegate. The green thing across them is a Bogatyr scape, soon to be supper, and the cleaned up ones are from the Garlic Store (big) and from Safeway (small).

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Have to admit, I thought the bulbs would be bigger. This fall I compost more, and I think I'll use another fertilizer. In spite of Miracle-Gro's ads, I don't see any real difference when I use it.

I'm a little surprised. I read the posting in the vegetable forum and was shocked by the short replies. Why would anyone bother to reply if they are just going to ask "why" she did what she did? Maybe I am just spoiled from all the pleasant responses here. I think I only saw one truly helpful response...I read most but not all the responses. Violet seemed to have good tips, lots of them. I see so many good pointers here on the RM forum and they are worded nicely, not with some shock at the lack of mulch or whatever. Heck, when one doesn't know or hasn't tried something before, they put up requests for help, not requests for silly remarks!!

Huh, I was surprised!

I like this little forum, so nice, so helpful!!

My gosh, that is a lot of garlic!! With all the garlic I eat, I should probably try to grow that, too.

Good luck, I hope your veggies feed you well :)

J.

Lilacs - Just wondering if the veggies perked up at all since we've had some relatively cooler weather and a little rain.

Yes, I haven't had a chance to go out tonight, but last night they had definitely perked up, especially the brassica. I had to apply more rotenone. The rain washed away what was on there, and during the brief time the plants were "naked," the flea beetles ate another broccoli down to the bone. Nothing left but green lace.

I don't want to put any more transplants out until I get rid of the flea beetles. I'd be sending my veggies out to certain death. I go out there in daylight, and I can see dozens, hundreds, of them hopping around in the beds. And they're in every single bed.

I got my Pyola. Now I have to figure out how to apply it. But this is more than just a couple holes in a couple leaves. These buggers are razing my entire garden.

All of the zucchinis and all of the melons are dead. And my volunteer All Blue potato looks done for, too. I sprayed the pyrethrin, but either it was too late, or it didn't phase the bugs.

Anyone see Starship Troopers? Or read the book? Was Heinlein a gardener? Maybe this is where he got the idea.

The three remaining brassica in my raised bed are hanging in there. And I haven't seen any more leafminer damage. The potatoes are doing fairly well, except for one, a Carola. It sprouted, poked above the soil, then dried up and died, even though I took pains to keep the bed watered. I doubt if it'll come back. I bought a new hose, and it's a dang site better than carting a watering can all over the yard. Especially since, on my last attempt to drag home soil from Home Depot, I threw out my right elbow, and now it's painful to lift things.

I harvested all of the fall-planted garlic. I guess they're curing in my dining room, which smells of eau de allium. My vacation's basically over, so I'll have to wait until this next weekend to do anything with them.

I put the last of the tomatoes, a San Marzano, in a container outside. I buried it deep, about 70% of it underground. I also put some purple basil with it. I took the peat pots off of both of them, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

None of my sunflowers are coming up. I planted four more seeds outside today.

I told myself that when I got done with the yard and the garden, I'd start a thorough cleaning of the house. When that started looking ship shape, I'd go out shopping and maybe to a movie.

I never quite got done with the yard. And I've got, um, 15 minutes left of my vacation? Sigh. Oh, well.