With an expected jump in temperatures, it was time to get many of the seedlings in the ground before the heatwave hit. I started on Saturday morning, nice and early. I had cleaned out one of the shade gardens the previous day, which did my back in with all the bending.
The following day, I worked on the butterfly garden. It had a lot of maple seeds that had sprouted and needed to be pulled. Plus, I had another new weed that seemed to have come from somewhere and decided to start colonizing, too.
It is hard to see the seedlings that I grew, but they are planted between the perennial plants. I put in a tray of zinnia, cosmos, blue star flowers, verbena, and nasturtiums throughout. I still haven't started any sunflowers, but I sure need to do that asap.
Today, I plan on planting out all the impatiens in the clean shade garden before we get a huge thunderstorm this evening.
This is one of the new varieties of Salvia that I had purchased from the nursery. I planted it next to the pond with a few verbena, zinnia, and lobelia. The hummingbirds have already been visiting the blossoms.
The Cuphia plants I purchased for the hummingbirds also hang next to the pond. I moved the feeder closer to the porch to keep it out of the hot sun. The hummingbirds are loving the new plant this year.
The Oriels are visiting their feeder too, which makes me so happy. I don't think I could move it close to the porch. I may have to find a shady spot to hang it from a tree for them.
This is how hot the greenhouse was before the heatwave. It is way too hot for the plants, and they were starting to stress. I spent Sunday moving out all the peppers that I had transplanted up into larger pots. They are underneath shade cloth in one of the raised beds until I can plant them out.
They are still small and will need some time to grow a bit before I find places for them all. I did overplant, once again. Oops!
The Roma tomato plants are the perfect size. I planted 14 of them along the cattle panels.
I was careful not to disturb the young peas that had started to sprout. You can see where they are surrounded by crushed eggshells to keep the slugs off.
They look so happy planted and out of those 4" pots. They all had wonderful root growth and will take off in no time at all.
I have four tomato cages along the side of the house where I planted two rib-stile and two zebra tomato plants. I just had to find another post and get a cage around one of them. I have two more F1 hybrid slicing tomato plants and need to figure out where to put them.
Meanwhile, underneath the insect netting, the cabbage plants, kale, and arugula are doing fantastic.
I had to harvest all the hydroponic plants due to the intense heat in the greenhouse. I had the Asian greens and the Bok Choi left to do. I had already done two lettuce rafts because they started to bolt.
All the hanging baskets got moved out and are surrounding the back porch. Of course, with the nice weather finally here, Mika and I are enjoying our afternoons sitting and watching the birds.
I was sure that I had ordered purple sweet potato vines back in February. They still had not arrived, and I was beginning to wonder if I had after all.
Well, yesterday I was busy planting the gardens in front of the house, the mailman came, and I forgot to go get the mail. Later that afternoon, 4 hours later. My hubby went and found a box in the mailbox. Mind you, it was 90°F. out, and sure enough, they shipped those slips during our heatwave.
Those poor plants looked half dead; the roots were wrapped in one paper towel, drier than dry. When I unwrapped it, half of the roots came off with it. I could not believe how bad they looked. I put them immediately into a glass of water, and am hoping for the best. Sweet Potato slips are very expensive, and I sure hope they recover from their hot journey.
Well, I need to get out and plant the impatiens this morning. I hope you, too, are having a nice time planting your gardens.