California - What are you doing this month?

Lightening is such a powerful show, but the grass fires are always a concern. Hadn't heard from you for a while, so glad to know all is well. Happy 4th of July.

We had a very quiet day topped off with a game night with our kids & kids' friends.  We had a blast.  

In case you didn't know it I HATE THIS HEAT!!!!  Me and my plants both 
Yuck!

My mulching is holding in the water nicely but things are still wilting just from the darn temps... Is it fall yet?!

Today was 105*F, tomorrow will be only 101*F, followed by 8 days in the 90s. So true to tradition, I'm starting my compost pile tomorrow morning. We have a family wedding to attend late August in Portland so it will be basically finished by then. Then I can make one more in September for the spring planting.

Tonight we went to the Farmer's Market (like a reunion for me!) and we got almost 7 5-gal buckets of "perfectly good" culls. Sigh. I also bought some heirloom tomatoes to save seeds. If the Hmongs can grow them here, maybe I can, also. Ha, ha. Zebra, Pineapple, and yellow Beefsteak.

Using the culls, alfalfa hay, left over horse manure stored in a 33 gallon garbage can, dried leaves from last fall. Plus, at least one 33 gallon can of City Compost. I want to run it through a hot compost pile before I use it in the SFG. I hope to convince husband to make one last box. 3' x 6' There's an area of dead lawn, where, if the sprinkler heads are changed from 180* to 90*, the box will stay dry.

That's all for now.

Sitting here, all showered and shampooed, eating a sandwich, cooling off. Husband and I finished chopping all the leaves and all the alfalfa hay with the lawn mower. He got the lawn mower part and I got the fun of shredding the alfalfa flakes for him. What a messy job it was, but the piles are really nice, fine (relatively) products. We also covered the top of the gazebo with the muslin sheet for shade for me later on (after a cool nap) when I finish prepping and finally build the pile. The culls are still in the buckets, slowly melting. I will use the drill attachment auger for breaking the culls up, instead of a knife and cutting board like I usually do. That takes hours. I'm trying to improve making the compost piles, trying to think smarter instead of working harder. Side note. The leaves have been stored in wire cages with cardboard bottoms since last fall. Guess what I found in the lower inch? Black gold and worms. That layer was removed before shredding and put in the flower beds.

Grats on the culls(sounds like they were worth eating!), the cooler temps, and getting your pile started. Rough as it is to work when it's hot, I guess this is the best time to compost.

The bad thing is that I took a wonderful 6 hour cool nap. I got a bit of heat exhaustion being out on the sunny "lawn" area. The only thing I'm going to do tonight is water. Tomorrow is another day.

Taking a heat break from building the compost pile. It's96*F with 21% humidity. When sweat drips off my nose, I come inside for 15. At 8 PM, expected only 91*F with 25% humidity. There's a light 10 mph breeze helping. The next 10 days temps are expected between 93-99*F. That means it will be 90 or less by 8 PM, so turning will be bad but not critical, if you know what I mean.

Never fell asleep last night knowing I had to get up before the sun. I got out of bed at 5 AM, made coffee and futtsied around the kitchen. With the near full moon last night it was hard to see the first blush of morning. I finished unloading the aged compost from the cage and swept it. Then sat down to squish, cut, de-pitt the fruits in the buckets. Not many greens at this time of the summer. I tried the auger and drill but it didn't really tear them up much most, only released some of the juices. I am so glad we chopped the alfalfa and dried leaves. I think there will be less shrinkage of the finished product because everything is packed in there.

Have you ever heard a man whimper when you pop a Bud Light for your compost pile? It's a sound worth recording.

Still have a lot more to go this evening.
You can see how fine the leaves and alfalfa hay are chopped. I'm spraying every 1 or 2".

I've resorted to putting a few "flakes" of hay at a time into a garbage can and running a weed whacker over it. Works real fast, but bits of hay caught in the breeze travel fast, so keep an eye on the air intake. It sort of works like an immersion blender to chop things up quickly.

YS,  "Flakes of hay," like oat hay or alfalfa?  Or, bedding straw?  We were going to try the weed whacker and garbage can method if the lawn mower didn't work.  He would run the whacker while I held a towel over the top to try to keep the debris down.  But, the lawn mower worked great.

I finally finished building the compost pile. My back has a couple days off until it's time for the first turning. I am praying that this is the best pile I have ever made. At least there are very, very few little pieces of wood or rocks. I screened the City compost and the dried horse manure before I added them to the pile. Only got one nasty wood splinter.

Been down to Southern California, Santa Barbara, for Fiesta and a too-brief visit with my son. Left the gardens to a plant sitter for 5 whole days (talk about trust!). Just got back to find my Zucchinis just pounding out the fruit, and the tomatoes spilling way out beyond the beds- cracked fruit(of Course) , but no DOA's as has been my misfortune in the past. So, now I'm thinking about thumbing my nose at the drought and planting some of my slow bolting Romain, Russien red kale, Onions, carrots, chives. My last water bill was 28% of what I used last August, so maybe I'll take a chance.

If you have dropped to 28% of last year's bill, then it sounds like you have some wiggle room to increase your water use. Did you ask the sitter just how much water they used?

The sitter was very cautious about using too much water and it doesn't appear that any water went to waste as most of the sitter's duties consisted of keeping my citrus, grape vines, and cuttings watered. The beds I had planted had no problems as they are on a drip system that is on auto timing. I'm going to hang back on increasing my water usage a little longer and see if I can afford a fall planting using all 10 of my beds. My fingers are crossed!

Sanderson, good work on your compost pile.  I really need to get things going as well.
Yardslave That's awesome on the garden sitter taking such good care of your crops, mine does a great job as well, but...

They aren't looking at everything we would be, so while we were camping last weekend the aphids moved in and took over :-(  Actually, the 107 degree heat earlier in the week weakened a lot of my plants so they were susceptible to the aphids that are always lurking.  *deep sigh*

I lost my most productive zucchini.  It was 12 feet across in all directions and was too over extended to handle that heat wave.  Oh well.  In it's place I planted two more spaghetti squash to see if we can squeak out another small crop of them for the winter.  

Started my fall/winter planting on Saturday.  So far I have planted Broccoli, Broccoli Raab, peas, carrots and beets.  I have a lot more to go.

YS, Very optimistic of you. Do you have deep mulch around your trees and vines?

Audrey, One benefit of mowing the dried leaves and alfalfa, using alfalfa instead of hay, and dried crumbled horse manure instead of big fresh plops, is that the compost is so uniform and I won't have to sift it. Turned it for the second time last night at 132*F and it is now up to 150*F. I can turn it Tuesday and Thursday and then we are off to Portland until next Wednesday. I know I keep saying it but I really do have to get all the pots on drippers. Mainly peppers, eggplants and tomatoes.

Yeah, I never got my watering system going this summer AGAIN!  Unfortunately, it requires my hubby and as wonderful a husband as he is, doing anything in a timely fashion is not exactly his strength *deep sigh!*

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:Yeah, I never got my watering system going this summer AGAIN!  Unfortunately, it requires my hubby and as wonderful a husband as he is, doing anything in a timely fashion is not exactly his strength *deep sigh!*

I think that applies to 95% of our DHs.

Ditto.  I find it helps if I give a time frame, like "I really need your help tomorrow moving the pots to the drip line areas, so I can go to your family reunion this Friday."  First he has to buy some inline shut off valves and metal and plastic stakes for the lines.  I told him to wake me when he gets back with the supplies.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:.....Unfortunately, it requires my hubby and as wonderful a husband as he is, doing anything in a timely fashion is not exactly his strength *deep sigh!*

I resemble That! I'm a notorious procrastinator. From what I've experienced, us guys have to prioritize things first and deal with them according to rank- eats up time. Ladies tend to jump in and get things going and sweat the details later.

Yardslave wrote:

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:.....Unfortunately, it requires my hubby and as wonderful a husband as he is, doing anything in a timely fashion is not exactly his strength *deep sigh!*

I resemble That! I'm a notorious procrastinator. From what I've experienced, us guys have to prioritize things first and deal with them according to rank- eats up time. Ladies tend to jump in and get things going and sweat the details later.

Yup!  Add a touch of OCD and perfectionism and you have my darling man to a tee!

I am off to Portland Oregon for 6 days.  Kitty is at the kennel and husband got all of the pots hooked up to waters.  I'm still going to worry, though.  Some tomatoes and peppers will be ready for picking while I'm gone, plus 2 cantaloupes.  The two are on 2 vines that died overnight.    Just like the cucumbers did.  Green one day, dead the next.  Spider mites have no mercy.  A cantaloupe was perfect to pick yesterday, and is in the frig until we return home.  On 2 other vines there are 4 cantaloupes growing.  That will make 10 for the year from 4 vines.  The 6 winter squash plants have given me only 2 spaghetti squash.  One tomato plant dried up so I pulled it.  The Rattlesnake and Dragon Tongue beans are flowering and producing again.

The local paper reported that Tulare Country has replaced Fresno County as the States #1 Ag producer in crop value at $8 billion.  $2.5 billion just from milk and $980 million from beef and calves.  That's a lot of manure that could be used in farming, especially spreading in the orchards with wood chips, etc. for a little BTE affect.  Oh, well.

I'll be checking in now and then, as family activities allow.

Enjoy your family and hopefully, the break from the heat!!!  I've lost a couple plants as well from the intense heat and aphids, grrrrrrr!  A day in the life of a "farmer!"

Portland = mild temps and large leaves on plants. No sun scald. Green pines and oaks, wild flowers, etc. with little water falls, yada yada. Take care in the high temps today.

The heat is just burning up my garden - the plants are old now and just don't have the resilience to survice.  The aphids are winning this round :-(

I'm thinking I'll just leave the infested plants and let them eat them to the ground, and maybe they'll leave the rest of the garden alone!!!

My sweet husband bought me a present from REI today - an new water crystal neck scarf to keep me cool in this ridiculous heat <3

So sad you and your garden are suffering. Hate to think what mine looks like. All I can think is that next year the whole garden will go under 75% shade runners. It comes in 50' and 100' rolls. If grommets work without pulling out, it will be fantastic. What a sweetie!