California - What are you doing this month?

Still waiting for that cooling trend.  Meanwhile, something ate one of the cantaloupes.  

The sunflowers are doing good along the east side fence:

Someone (probably a teen of the male gender) jumped up and pulled over the tallest in this cluster, broke the stalk and snapped off the big flower.  

Scorpio Rising wrote:Out of decay, there is beauty!

They are rather happy looking flowers.  My fave are zinnias but they wouldn't be tall enough to showcase.  I know, next year hemp plants!  That should get the neighbors' attentions.

Meanwhile, I walk outside and something is dreadfully wrong with one of the bucket tomatoes!  Black droppings on the ground!

Found the culprit!  And a grasshopper down in the straw mulch.

I really didn't want to can tomatoes this year. . . Let's see, 2-legged, 4-legged, and 6-legged pests! Bought covers it. Oh, and we had rats in the attic all week. Set rat traps and got 4 of them. Haven't heard any more scratching in the attic, which is good, but we haven't figured out how they got in there. We have got to find the entrance or it will just repeat. I can't describe how funny it was to watch us set those rat snap traps with slices of apple! A video would have gone viral within hours.

Scorpio Rising wrote:What is that thing, Sanderson?  Hornworm?

Yep. I saw frass today under another tomato but no worm. I think the mocking bird was able to see it and grab it for dinner.

The 90s are down right refreshing after that heat wave.    I'm actually starting my fall seedlings.  This will be the first time trying seeds for the kale, broccoli, purple cauliflower, chard, and bok choy.

I am going to OSH to buy some Dr. Earth liquid kelp and some bagged manure.  Trying to give the beds a boost after the surprising lab results.

I guess no one bought the idea that I plan to grow hemp next year to stir up the neighborhood. I wonder if it stinks, or has the tell-tale smell, like MJ plants do??

This is the email Yardslave sent to me this evening. I knew he was near the Carmel Valley Fire and hadn't posted in a couple weeks, so I emailed him. Yep, up to his nose in alligators . . . and burning embers! Spoiler alert: his SFG is doing good.

Hi S,
Last two weeks have been pretty wild in my neighborhood, so please forgive me for not keeping in touch. The fire is 45% contained at this time, but continues to flare up close to me. Despite reports that it is heading south and eastward, areas 2 miles east of me have been under mandatory evacuation orders twice this week as backfires set to head off the fire have blown back on the firefighters and caused the fires to head back in our direction. All last week we residents of the Carmel Valley Village have been put on alert by Calfire. We were told to be ready for an evacuation order if the fire blew over the ridge to our south. Fire crews canvassed the neighborhoods and posted signs on everybody's mailboxes informing fire crews the defensibly of the structures- a real eye opener, as most places were firetraps! My luck, there's a fire hydrant across the road from my house, and I have 2" lines for hoses and irrigation with an insane GPH rating for all the outlets around my gardens, so my house was rated "defensible". The other thing is that the 33 acre field in front of my property is now a staging/ landing zone for 8-10 helicopters that use the field as a refueling and support. Crews are stationed 24/7 out there. They eve set up an mobile air traffic control center to keep the choppers from piling up in the air. My front yard reminds me of the chopper LZ scene from "Apocalypse Now". Air quality is so bad that I have been forced to stay inside as much as possible- had to get a rescue inhaler, it got so bad! The visibility's been less than a mile at times most morning since the fire started and ash rains down everywhere. I've found burned lichens as big as my fist on my driveway, and pieced of burnt pine bark the size of quarters and as thick as a nickle drop out of the sky. My SF gardens are doing well, and I'm sure the ash will do it some good, but the smoke is Blotting out the sun enough to fool the fruit trees and their leaves are going into Fall mode. Once the fire's over 50% contained, I'll get back to posting on the Forum, so please, if you can, post this up for me, and thank you for you concern- bless you

It looks like this area will only get up to 105*F max.  Just in time for all the new tomato flowers to get slammed again.  The Sun Golds have some set fruit but they are not large enough for canning.  It's the other varieties I was counting on for canning volume.

Tuesday I mixed and added some Dr. Earth Liquid Seaweed for micro-nutrients.  Looks like it is also supposed to be good for flowering and setting.  I considered fish emulsion for nitrogen (of which my Mix was also tested low) but I didn't know if it would smell too much.  The seaweed smells like beach sand, not bad.  I emailed Dr. Eart for application rate for SFG.  One cup per square.  100 squares plus pots plus BTE plants.  

So, Orchard Supply Hardware had a composted manure called Double Doody, a cow and horse manure compost.  Normally, it's close to $8 / cu. ft, and was on sale for $1.75.  So we bought 5 bags to try.  Well, we found out one reason it was on sale.  The plastic bags were deteriorating, so the guys had to put each bag in new plastic bags.  (slow seller?)  When we got home, Husband found that the compost was soaking wet!  So now the stuff is spread out to dry on a tarp.  It doesn't smell bad, though, thank goodness.

I finally got around to starting the winter seedlings: broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, chard and kales.  I also am trying to grow some more herb before winter.  They will be for drying.  The dill reseeded itself so I don't have to do that one.

Agribon.  Well I bought some Agribon-30 for shade cloth but all that happened was the bean and cucumber growth fried from the extra heat!    So I removed them and will replace today with the 75% Home Depot sun shade.  I couldn't get the sticky, dried leaves off the Agribon, but I'm happy to say that they washed up nicely in the washer with some light drying in the dryer.  I'll save them for winter covers.

I'll sign off with a pest update.   Very few sightings of grasshoppers.  I'm pretty good at dispatching them.   A noisy critter was in one of the gutters.  I had husband climb up the ladder to investigate (after having rats in the attic I was concerned).  Turns out it was an iridescent C-130 on its back!  He set it free and it's been lumbering around the back yard ever since.