From the Archives

(aka beginning of the month)

Yay for Dolly!

Hurricane Dolly (tropical storm, whatever) made landfall at South Padre island last week (second to last week in July). Since we were on the "dirty" side this time, it actually meant we got some rain (last year when Rita hit, we were on the 'clean' side and so we got 105* temps, no rain, and 85% humidity, with no breeze, at all).

We didn't get a ton of rain, only maybe about an inch or so, but it was definitely a much needed inch.

Plus, it brought the temperature down, and it's actually been downright nice outside...sure, a little hot in the sun, but not bad.

Also, yesterday I transplanted my watermelon and cantaloupe plants in the back garden where I had a brandywine tomato that died.

July Updates

Things that have died:
The watermelon plant,
The cantaloupe plant in the back yard
the tomato in the back yard
most of the parsley plants

Things that have produced fruit:
Nothing. Okay, that's a lie. The Lemon Boy tomato plant produced 2 tomatoes, but I didn't eat them because we had leaf miners and the got to the fruit too, so everything was thrown away. Plus one of the tomatoes split the day before I picked it anyhow.

Things that are still surviving:
The basil plants in a planter
The oregano plants in the back yard
The new lantana plant (though barely, and the old plants are just fine)
The tomato plants our front (since I had leaf miners all the plants got a pretty drastic pruning)
The pepper plants (one has flowers now, so hopefully there will be peppers)
Texas Mountain Laurel trees (YES!!!!)
my grapefruit trees (YES!!!!)

Next steps:
According to the Natural Gardener Garden shop, it's time to start tomato seeds again. I don't know if I'll go for it, if only because my tomato plants are currently okay...though they're not producing flowers or fruit, but still, I don't know if I want to go through the energy of starting more plants when I don't really have anywhere to put them.

Also, I started another batch of cantaloupe and watermelon seeds last week. Hopefully I can keep them alive this time.

Future:
I may eventually opt to go the route of getting some Earth Boxes instead of planting stuff in the garden. Then I'd just need to find some nice flowers to go in the garden and hopefully then I wouldn't have to spend so much time doing stuff...

tomato pinworms

I've known it for a while, just didn't care...until all of my tomato plants were attacked. Sigh.