Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

Greetings from the Garden, HOT Garden!

Posted Wednesday, July 4, 2012, at 1:47 PM

Strange fruit but not the Billie Holiday kind.

Walking the garden provided a few surprises this morning. I knew the tomatoes I grew were different but I did not expect radioactive mutation!

Most of the tomatoes off this plant look similar to this photo and I usually welcome new, but this one does not do it for me. The ladies of the house have not seen it yet but I believe this will be one plant we let dry up into the sunset.

The experts say that food presentation is a big part of fine dining. Well,... this one is just the opposite, at least to me.

Then I noticed that some deer was taste testing the cantaloupe. It wasn't PITA was it? Naah, I think Bambi.

I picked all the tomatoes off the plants and cut them back to see if it will help sustain them through this hot spell. If it helps, I might cut off all my hair! Whew, no more work in the garden while the sun is up!

The okra are loving it and it may be too hot for the squash bugs. They are there, but they do not seem to be doing much to the plant right now. In fact, they are moving out to the okra and soybeans. Don't seem to be doing much there either.

Still have a few Japanese beetles but most everyone seems to be hunkering down from the heat. The bitter melon, Armenian cucumber and peppers seem to be thriving

Popular theory on watering plants is to not get the leaves wet. I wonder if they took into account that insects need water as well, like the beneficial ones. I lightly misted my plants this morning because I believe they take up water from the leaves, as well as the roots. (Rain does not bypass the leaves)

In doing so, I almost immediately had wasps and smaller insects climb out from underneath and sip on the water. Maybe the secondary theory that if you water from above, do it with enough time to dry off before night is a better way. This avoids the chance of diseases from dampness.

Of course, if you already have a disease on the leaves, maybe only lightly mist those so water does not splash down and help spread the disease. Just a thought. :-)