Sunday, July 22, 2012

An oft forgotten task:cultivating and lessons learned


 We have been blessed with quite a lot of rain in the last couple of weeks yet when I checked on some of the plants they are dry several inches below the surface. An Oh My moment hit. We mulched with compost and have not cultivated it much since it went on weeks ago. It has a wonderful crust to keep the moisture below but is not letting rain soak through  well enough. Soooooo.... I spent a hour out in the bed this morning cultivating the top layer, adding a bit of bone meal around the eggplant, tomatoes, and okra,  and watering the plants good from my rain water stash.


The eggplants are blooming again and so are the okra. Peppers have buds and we have had a constant supply of peppers--not enough to put up but enough to eat every day or so. Lots of little beans setting on the plants and blooms. Now if some will get big enough to pick again. Oh, the heat!


The malabar spinach (left) tower has taught me another lesson--do not make the tower higher than my fingertips as it is hard to pick the leaves when I cannot reach them!  I am finally seeing a few more bees around the Mexican petunias too--not nearly like last summer though.