Gardening

You may have noticed the heat. Perhaps I've mentioned it. It's been hot. HOT. And dry. Very, very dry even for this here desert.

Actually, Salt Lake isn't especially dry. Thanks to the lake we live in a temperate zone both in temperature and moisture terms. But this summer? Pshah. No rain for you.

But gardening is an odd sport, anyway. Last year, with mild temps and plenty of rain, the lettuce and snow peas performed well. This year: nothing.

Meanwhile, this year the tomatoes are mutants - busting out all over the place. They scoff at "frames" and need no support. And who needs supports, anyway, when the sunflower stalks reach 8 feet high? The tomatoes just lean on the sunflowers.

Last year my carrots were hilariously stunted. They were carrots for garden gnomes. This year? Twice as big! Four whole inches in some cases! 

Last year, the herb bed performed better than any other. Rosemary, basil, parsley and sage grew in fierce competition with thyme and lemon verbena. This year everything struggled. Except the sage, which is experiencing nightly growth spurts. I planted strawberries in that bed. They eked out a pathetic existence but produced nothing edible.

This post records my optimism. I just planted (August 19) a fall crop of carrots, lettuce (butterhead, Romaine, and red leaf, as always), and spinach. The week or ten days they'll take to germinate should be hot but since they won't be up...who cares? And they'll have shade from the tomato mutants, anyway. Then, as the autumn cools and the rains appear (please, please, please), they might make something worth eating.