Oy. It’s hot here. Like, melt your face off hot. How are you? Staying cool? I hope so. The garden is hating life right now, just like the rest of us. Except we get to hide out in the air conditioning, while our poor plants are suffering out there in hellish temperatures. For the sensitive viewers out there, you might want to shield your eyes.
Right? You do remember when the tomato plant looked like this, don’t you?
Yea. Those were better days. August in Phoenix, though? Bleh. I had to rip out a tomato plant over the weekend, there was just too much dry death out there and it was crapping me out. That is what’s on the ground in the top picture to the right. I am leaving the big bush to see if I can bring it back with cooler weather. It could make it, it could die, but I’m going to see what it does nevertheless. In ripping out the tomato plant that I did, I uncovered this guy:
Seriously? A strawberry plant in August? He’s so confused. And of course, now that he isn’t protected with a canopy of dying tomato plant, he’ll probably succumb to frying like the rest of ’em. Guess we’ll find out, huh? Here’s what else we’ve got hanging in there:
tomato, thyme and strawberry
Maybe I should have listened when my friend shared this mint transplant with me, and put it in a container so it doesn’t take over…
Look at all that green amidst all the brown! The basil is just so mild mannered, it gets along in almost any circumstance. The bell peppers are MUCH smaller than they use to be, but they are still going strong and taste pretty good when we let them go to red. Let’s not talk about the tomato, OK?
So the tomato plant I ripped out. It was full of tomatoes, but they aren’t that good, really. They came from a compost growth, and I know which tomatoes they descend from. At Christmas time, my sister brought over a salad full of cherry tomatoes. When the lettuce and everything else started to rot, I threw the whole bowl of salad into the compost pile. Those tomatoes sat for a whole month without changing a bit. No wrinkling, no browning, no rotting. Outside all that time, and they stayed “fresh” as the day they were bought? Ew. I haven’t been able to really enjoy them because I felt like they were probably GMO and definitely going to make me grow a third eye or something. And they grow really long and deformed, so that’s just weird. I mean, don’t you think? Anyway, I have another of the same plant out there, and I’m just going to watch and see what it does.
lily and vinca
dead tomato, sage and elephant food
So yesterday I harvested cherry tomatoes, basil and bell peppers. I made my yum-tastic pesto (recipe here) and cooked up a pretty tasty dinner with pesto mahi mahi, steak, pasta salad with the peppers and tomatoes, and grilled zucchini from my cousin’s garden. At least I am able to enjoy something from the garden right now. Come on autumn! I am so ready! How is your garden growing?
