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Sunday, September 30, 2018

It's been a bad summer - heat and fires non stop

It's been a bad summer here in the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon. Tonight we got the first rain we've have in months and the constant fires here in Oregon and Northern California have made it dangerous to spend much time outdoors.

So the garden has suffered as well as we humans and the wildlife. Hopefully next year will be better.

It was in the mid 90's yesterday and the 70's today. So I took advantage of the cooler weather and spent some time in the garden spraying fungicide on my newly planted (this summer,) small, magnolia tree and the roses. I also removed three more of my tomato cages and transplanted a few cauliflower starts that I think I waited too long to plant; but I'm hoping they might actually do something.

My beans and tomatoes did well, but several plantings of lettuce bolted fast in this summer's heat and smoke, and the zucchinis and other squash and melons were a bust because of lack of pollination. I think the smoke kept the pollinators away, even if they were able to survive the endless heat and dangerous levels of smoke the last few months.

I hope everyone else's garden did better than mine this summer. I'm definitely looking forward to putting this garden to bed and getting on with my winter projects.

I canceled my morning paper and decided to learn how to read Tarot cards as my mental exercise instead of the morning crossword. The only reason I bought the local, mediocre paper, was for the crossword and it was over $300 a year, so I thought the money would be better spent buying some Tarot card decks and books. If I want to do a crossword there are free, printable crossword puzzles on line, I have found.

Well, that's it for the late September garden report.