Side Garden Revisited

With all the attention on the farm on the beach, it's easy to forget the garden at home. I haven't been attending to it all that much, now that the worst of the heat wave has passed.

The tomatoes have gotten quite large, and are producing somewhat. I pulled off many of the wilted leaves from the disease that has been affecting them. This makes them look much more attractive, but has done little to stop the upward progress of the yellowing, then browning, of the leaves.

The cosmos are in full flower now, yet leave me wishing they put out a little less greenery. The zinnias are also doing better and are considerably tolerant of the high heat. I grew zinnias in southern New Mexico, and they did quite well at 105 degrees F.

Cosmos.

I trimmed back the borage so that it could do its best to provide a second bloom. It's nothing like the first bloom. I think I know why it is said that borage makes for better tomatoes and beans -it brings in a lot of pollinators. We have much less bees now that the borage is producing so few flowers. I am thinking of scattering seeds at the farm on the beach. If these here don't get producing, I will pull them out in favor of something else.

It's worth noting that our beans have done terrible this year. Producing N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The purple podded beans we planted have not produced one pod! My old blue lake bush seeds were not viable anymore, sprouting only a few plants -and those have only given a few beans. I've noticed less availability in the markets -is this just me? Last year my one container of blue lake bush provided at least 4 lbs of beans over the summer.