Wonderful Summer Weather

The joy of summer is looking into your garden and seeing all the beautiful tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and other vegetables ready to be harvested. The weather has been really warm and sunny, meaning that the marine layer is nowhere to be seen. I have not been watering as much but have been checking to see that the cucumber seedlings are not getting eaten. The roses are at their peak and they are constantly blooming...at different times. The red roses come and get scorched easily but all the apricot, pink, white, and yellow ones are just looking fantastic. All the hard work is paying off. Gardening is really easy. All you need is some time to take care of your garden. Maintenance is necessary to keep your garden at its optimum growing capacity. No one can tell you what to do, you just follow your instincts. My elbow is getting better. It still hurts to use a pruner and I have to do some exercises to relieve the stress on the tendons. I have never had this much pain before in one place.

The school harvest looks amazing! Picking it was fun too!

Today's bouquet

Sungold tomatoes are just so tasty!

Monday's harvest at McKinley ES

I saw the craziest berry patch in my community garden.

The most beautiful plumeria I have ever seen!

Visited a plumeria farm on Saturday

I am really getting into plumerias once again. My mom has a few and I chose to go to Kauai just to look at the plumerias during my vacation a long time ago. There are so many varieties.
It is hard to choose! I have to be very careful about what I want. I spent some time this weekend looking at the Thai varieties. Some are them are just outstanding! I already went crazy over David Austin roses. I need to draw the line somewhere.





My Elbow is Still...

 My elbow has not been healing properly because of me. At the first sign of "oh, I feel better", I have been working again the the garden with the pruners. The pruners are bad! But I have to groom all the plants and lately the July gloom has just made my tomato plants look really sad. One tomato plant to had to be pulled out of the ground. Good bye to my Aunt German Green. The Big Rainbow is hanging on and so is Sungold. I can't believe that I thought it was a Sweet Million. I have a lot of tomatoes on the Sungold but I had to strip most of the leaves. I have not been watering it but someone else is not watering properly. Now I know why I do not like to grow tomatoes. The cucumbers are looking good. I am going to check on them today to make sure some survived the cut worms, snails, and the slugs. The kale has been producing. I see the aphids starting to emerge from the tips. That means it is getting warm and the plant is getting a little stressed.




Stripped Plant

The dill is taking off!





Seeing a lot of caterpillars and a swallowtail butterfly depositing an egg

My tomato patch

Too Much of a Good Thing

Sometimes when I get started on something, I need to finish my projects. I put my 100% into it. Well, I did it. I really strained my elbow and I have to not use it. I can type but I can't really use too many fingers. It all started with gardening a few weeks ago. I used the Korean hoe-mi like a madwoman hacking through all the damn narcissus bulbs at John Muir High School. Then in my own garden, I was pruning and using a my elbow a lot. The plumbing issues of this last week caused even more inflammation. I was cleaning the bathroom and lifting heavy things. So I am sitting here with a knee brace on my elbow. I can't do any lifting or do any repetitive motions. I miss my Felco pruners already! My elbow finally told me last night it was done with all the stuff I have been doing to it!