My Mosaic Plant

One of my favorite houseplants, is this nerve plant, or mosaic plant. Its bright green with hot pink veined leaves are so interesting to look at. The plant needs little sunlight so it does great indoors, and loves damp soil. I have three of these adorable things.

Southern Heat Wave

Well, moving to South Louisiana from Southern California and trying to garden in the summer has been an experience. We tried so hard, all the way through July, hoping to finally get a garden going in the backyard of our new home. And not all hope is lost, I just hope the tomatoes hold up through the heat, and maybe produce come September. My poor tomato garden, hang in there!

Today's weather, and its only noon: 93°F - Feels Like 104°F

...and that's nothing! Yesterday it hit "Feels Like" 118. And yeah, that's fahrenheit. Its so hot, even our prickly pear cactus started to produce a flower, and it was killed by mildew. Mildew and mold on so many plants. Lots of the tomato blossoms succumbed to this as well, the pollen clumps and molds and the blossoms rot right off. And let's not forget it is hurricane season.

So I have given up on anything in the yard for now. Our spacemaster cucumber vines did rather well, we got roughly a dozen cucumbers, some really large for a half size compact vine. And I did sprout three pumpkin seeds and put them in the back of the yard and holy bejeezus. These vines are almost the thickness of a quarter in some parts, and they have grown oh a good 10-15 feet out of the little fenced in corner of the yard I put them in. It was a mole ridden little garden area that I figured why not, hoping the vines would even survive. And we already have some little tiny pumpkins on them. Just amazing.

This is our first year learning, officially, so I haven't documented everything just yet to spare myself some embarrassment in the garden blog realm. But hey, up against 110 degree weather we're not doing too bad. Unfortunately, we were not able to start anything in terms of gardening until mid June because we were too busy with house upgrades having just got here at the end of 2006. So I can't wait til the weather cools off!

I have also recently planted more seeds, indoors, in the back of our nice sunny breezeway which gets sunlight nearly all day. Not quite enough to make the basil go crazy, but enough to sprout some baby plants. I did some health kick tomatoes, and some creole tomatoes yesterday. Outside we have several heirloom tomato plants, even about 10 in the ground, and the poor guys are just dying in the heat. It seems like only the vines enjoy the insane heat, and they go crazy.

I hope it rains today!

Honey Bee in Cucumber Blossom

It is literally a race to keep the greenery tame during the summertime here in the deep, tropical south. The Saint Augustine lawn grows like mad, and if you don't mow the beast every week it gets crazy. The wasps are out in full force and the cicadas are screaming, having a good time.

Our two cucumber hills have turned into massive vine mounds! This is our first year growing, first year in our new home with lots of yard space. Next year I know how to design the bed for the cucumbers, that is for sure. It seems like the vines just go nuts down here. Our cucumbers are out of control, and I planted three little pumpkin sprouts and put them in the corner in the back of the yard and they are going insane too. The vines love the acidy clay soil here it seems. I hope the tomatoes do as well, they are going in the ground soon.

Here is a lovely shot of a honey bee pollinating our giant cucumbers.



Our Best Cucumbers Collection