Basil really loves the heat. Mine is just now starting to look good. It's easy to grow from seed.

Well, I read your other post about being discouraged, and I can say that at times this gardening season, I've shared that emotion. There are some things, both edibles and perennials that are not doing well for me this year, and I don't have the answers. My basil in the garden has withered away to nothing, not sure what is going on there, but I am growing some in a pot in my kitchen windowsill, and it's growing fine there. My cilantro fried to a crisp already, and only one dill seedling, and one marjoram seedling remain alive. Most of my spinach, lettuce, and swiss chard was ruined by leaf miners of some type. I've also lost several pepper plants, even one of the transplants I put in. So then I start stressing out ... am I overwatering, underwatering, is something wrong with the soil, is it bugs, or some kind of disease??? So I can relate to being discouraged.

What I am TRYING to do is rejoice in the things that ARE successful. For me, the heat is making my 'Jack B. Little' pumpkin sprouts really take off, and the bush beans seedlings are starting to pop up like crazy. Then there are some things that are growing slow, but look healthy, like the carrots, oregano, and a few bush cucumbers. My current mindset in the veggie garden is kind of like a safety in numbers theory. I figure seeds are cheap, so if I plant enough of them, the odds are there will be at least a few survivors left for me to harvest.

As Skybird and Digit reminded me on another thread (thanks guys), we garden because it gives us pleasure, so try to focus on what IS working and enjoy the process. I don't know if this helps, but I feel sure that all gardeners have had at least a few gardening failures. If it was so easy, there wouldn't even be a need for a Rocky Mountain Gardening forum.

I keep starting new brassica seedlings. Right now they're replacements for the ones that died. Eventually, I'll just start calling them my fall crop.

I've planted basil and oregano in with my container tomatoes. The basil has been eaten by something, but it's still alive. The oregano is taking off.

I know tomatoes need full sun, but I've put the containers on the shadier side of my house. They still get a lot of sun in the afternoon, but it's not 12 hours of intense summer sun like my raised beds get. My snow pea only gets a couple hours, and it's doing fine. My sweet pea flowers get 120 degree heat, no water, and intense sun all day, and they're taking off. They love it.

I had such visions, though, of melons, stuffed zucchini shells, and broccoli with garlic cheese sauce. Buying it from the store is just not the same thing.

I have shade cloth on order. It shields 50% of the sun. That might help my brassica a little.

I might have to start thinking Zone 7 when I garden. Trouble is, winters here are still Zone 5.

Slugs really love basil. I have to constantly keep on top of them and picked off a dozen or so this morning. The only slug control I'll use, iron phosphate, dissolves right away when wet, so it only lasts a day.

My tomatoes only get about half a day of sun, and are setting fruit already.

I really really wouldn't give up on the zukes yet. Please tell me you didn't pull them.

Variety is insurance - one year one does well, another doesn't. Next year, it's the reverse. The only consistency is change.

Tuff year for my savoy cabbage, I THINK I've beaten down the flea beetles enuf to get a few nice heads . . . A few days before they come out, good or bad, zucchini seed will be planted between the cabbage plants. That way if the zukes I've already got poop out from the mildew by the 1st of September - I've got others coming on.

Bush beans have always been my 2nd crop everywhere - I'll plant 'em after the peas.

Thanks to the owls, we will begin picking a decent crop of peas this morning. We'll have pods instead of the rabbits getting seedlings. Of course, the vines could have made more growth if it hadn't been for the 95°F heat the garden got about 4 weeks ago.

All that flowering you are seeing in your sweet peas, Lilacs, is being encouraged by the sun and heat. My garden peas would have been better served to have had plenty of sun a couple weeks ago when they were "forced" into flowering except that by that time the high temps had plunged 45° and we had 2 weeks of overcast . . .

Nevertheless, it could have been a lot worse for them even without the bunnies. Aphids love peas and especially sweet peas. I've had the lovely plants covered with aphids and shown up with my "harmless" insecticidal soap. After a day in the sun, better than 1/2 the spray-covered plants died . . . So that year, I once again proved that I am my garden's worse enemy.

Twelve months is how long a gardener needs to wait to "fix" something. Take joy in the immediate surroundings and activities and dreams.

Live and learn, work and pray.

digitS'

"but I feel sure that all gardeners have had at least a few gardening failures. "

More like a few thousand failures. Some very expensive in time and money. Especially time. But that's why I'm alot better than I used to be.