Good Morning. Cheerios, blueberries & banana in the bowl. Oolong in the cup, with lemon verbena & anise hyssop steeping in the kettle.
Right back out to water, today. It is just too hot and the plants are just too small. They cannot shade the ground and their roots are very shallow. Besides, I haven't run the sprinklers enough this season to wash the topsoil below the gravel to create that "stone mulch."
Yes, it helps. There has to be some advantage to gardening in rocky soil.
I think that I had better take a close look at the peppers out there this morning. If they look like the "one" in the backyard pot, they are too small to be flowering and developing fruit.
@heirloomgal 's comment on her peppers and pruning off flowers made me take a more critical look at the potted one.
It is a first time for me to try a pot through the season. I have read often how peppers do well in cooler climates when grown in pots. I don't know how this rates for "cooler" but we have cool nights - semi-arid, fairly high elevation. Anyway, I had one Big Bertha left over after fitting others in the distant garden. Nice big plants (a new-to-me variety) but it has just sat there doing nothing for several weeks. The potted tomatoes nearby are growing with some
vigor! So, there's quite a contrast, however, I'm quite sure that the peppers in the big veggie garden are doing no better and may be on their own route to low-production. That wouldn't be much of a contrast with normal years but it's a frustrating scenario. The only time I have grown peppers that must have come close to their potential was the Summer I had a row of them in a greenhouse bed. A bother to keep those things watered. But, they grew so well it was difficult to move around in there (when I had to brave the HEAT)!
Steve
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