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Sunday, June 06, 2010

Update for the beginning of June

I walked out to my patio this afternoon, looked around, took a wiff and though, it looks like a rain forest out here. I caught a rather pungent oder near the hottest point of the day, which in Mississippi is the latter part of the day when the sun is in the west. Of course the days will come when the morning yields high humidity and temperatures over 100. It is also that time of year when the ducks are taking their little ones to school, teaching them to crap in my breeze way... wait, I have a pic.



I saw them on the way in from taking my recycling to the drop off centers, got my camera and took a picture. The adults were rather angry I came back out, but then they are Muskovies, they have tiny brains and lets face it, they are the ugliest ducks in the world. 

Ok, so my Marigolds are looking a little raggid. It would do well for me to dead head them and let the plants start over, because the plants themselves are very strong. The reason I don't dead head them is because I don't have a pruner for it, and let me tell you, the smell of a marigold sticks around on hands forever.
My peppers take the heat in a much different way. The JalapeƱos take the heat and sun well, but the bells tend to shrivel under direct sun and once the light is no longer direct they pop right back out. The soil is nice and moist the container is watering itself appropriately, the top has maybe a centimeter of dry soil and under that is a dark cool soil. 


They are still too small to support fruit but look like they are doing well so far, even though they only get 3 hours of sun at best. 
These are my potatoes, I tried to keep them up and straight, but now they are tangled up and growing all together into a knot, that is fine, they help each other. 
I found this interesting. Fungus. I have looked into whether or not I should remove the tiny toadstools. Most forums seem to go with leaving them, since all they really do is represent a good ecosystem. The one thing I will do is lessen my watering to every other day, since the containers themselves are not in direct sun. The stalk is very thick and healthy if it begins to look bad I will alter my plan. 

My impatiens are really sort of funny. When they get full sun they look like me after getting out of my car with no AC, wilted and sad. Thirty minutes later, just like me, they are happy again. Impatiens are pretty tough, they were a good idea. 
Had this visitor today, that is a potato leaf he is visiting.
If you look closely you can see a white tube in this jar. I am steeping some compost tea with my vermicompost. I wrapped some of the compost in paper towels, look like a very large and special cigarette. I wonder if the smell is coming from there in the heat of the day? Well it had gone away later, at worst I imagine something crawled under one of my containers and died. I get a few critters using my patio as a walk way. Saw a mouse one day and a lizard another. If it continues to get bad, I will do better look but right now, it is fine. 
I love that I can see my patio flowers from Airways Blvd driving north past the hospital. Keep growing folks.