I made a video of my garden and posted it on my June's Tarot Journey You Tube channel. Here it is if you want to see my one year old, in progress, garden.
Today I spent over an hour just planting 3 more of the Hollyhocks I started from seed. The soil here is hard clay and without any natural rainfall in over a month, or more, I had to wet it down repeatedly just to get a hole started. Then I hit and disconnected a drip line and had to get to the garage and turn that part of the system on to find where it had disconnected from. Fortunately, it was an easy fix and I got on with planting the last of the 3 I had room for in that bed and headed back in the house to cool off.
With a big fire covering North of us 18,000 acres that is only 25% contained, bringing smoke into this valley starting around noon every day and not moving out till around dinner time when the winds shift, and the high 90s temperatures, morning is the only time I can work in the garden with some level of comfort.
It's been a bad year for tomatoes - worst I've ever had in my 56 years of gardening. Until a couple of weeks ago when my oregano came into flower, I hardly saw a bee in the garden. I don't know if all the constant summer fires the past couple of year is the cause or the poisons that people and growers are using on all the plants, decimating the population, but it's definitely concerning.
Hope all my fellow gardeners are having a good summer.
