scrubbedexpat099

Well if you are coming by I have space for you to drop off.

Pulaski

I'll bear that in mind.

ellio

So where are your tree house photos then?

scrubbedexpat091

I didn't do what originally was planned, but did have a small patio garden for bell peppers and tomatoes and pumpkins at the mother in law's.

Haven't had much success, 2 bell peppers, and very small, and 2 or 3 tomatoes, lots of flowers but not much fruit, I think the extremely warm (for this region anyhow) and dry summer has affected the bee's and other insects who pollinate.

It's unlikely the 6 pumpkins will ever ripen, the vines are dying fast. I can't keep them watered sufficiently, too warm in the day and night for healthy pumpkins.

Commercial farmers of several crops are having issues as well due to the hot dry summer.

scrubbedexpat099

Ours has been the wettest in 20 years.

ellio

112 degrees in the summer and just below freezing in winter and the mint grows fine.
lamb chops and home made mint sauce ...

Pulaski

I don't have any photos.

Pulaski

I spent Sunday afternoon on the 45° pitch roof over the bonus room/ garage, painting the diagonal strip of the end wall of the house above the garage, which runs all the way to the peak of the ridge of the house roof, 31ft up! Two coats of primer on siding and trim/fascia, two coats of white topcoat on the trim/fascia, and two coats of light beige on the siding. Looks very nice, if I say so myself. ..... I just need to finish the high gable ends now.

WEBlue

Now that the summer's nearly gone, my vegetable garden, along with the flowers, has recovered a bit. Either the plants have just settled in & decided to grow well, or some bug that was eating many of them has died off, but at last I'm getting a great crop of basil, sage, tarragon. The lettuce is gone & I've not been able to sprout a second crop of it, but some of the tomatoes are producing decently--not bountifully, but decently. Now I'm busy planting a few autumn crops, and spring bulbs of course.

As for other autumn projects, the local yard sales are fantastic lately!!! People are selling some good stuff for very low prices. I've picked up 3 pieces of furniture just in the last two weekends--both need work (repairs, glue, paint, etc) so I'll have my spare winter time filled up with those projects. Also need to clean the gutters, schedule septic clear-out, and find someone to paint a few spots on the house exterior. Winter's coming!

scrubbedexpat091

I harvested the 4 pumpkins that made it. They all grew funny shaped though and can't stand upright... Bad year to try pumpkins, hopefully next year will be better.

The last couple of tomatoes are just about done, and that is it for the year, time to pack up the pots and put into storage.

Nutmegger

So glad that your garden is doing well at last. Mine is breaking my heart -- week after week of no rain, and my beautiful hydrangeas are wilting away. Every day I drag water to a few favorites that I couldn't bear to lose, but it isn't feasible to water everything. We have decided to just let the annuals go, so they have shriveled away to nothing. Whenever I do something in the kitchen sink, I collect the water in a bowl and then dump it into the herbs on the deck, so they are still doing well.

We've been hitting the yard sales, too -- lots of good finds this summer! I found a lovely framed Thai textile for $2 this weekend -- so pretty and in impeccable condition -- plus a pristine desk lamp available on the Internet for $150 for the same price. I always get withdrawal in the fall when the sales dwindle away!

And in the "winter's coming" department, we are having a second oil tank installed, so we can be snowed in for two months without worrying about a delivery!

sir_eccles

Oddly enough I just finished building a new vegetable garden. Started planted it yesterday.



Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, tarragon so far. Some seeds for carrots, beets, onions, beans and peas to go in shortly.

The odd growing seasons here in Phoenix still weird me out.

Pulaski

I moved the 10'x36' sheet of black plastic again over the weekend. The first three two-week cycles have mostly done their job of cooking the weeds over 3/4 of the vegetable patch, with only a few cheeky weeds daring to reappear, and a couple of patches of wire grass. I will try to make time next weekend to dig out the handful of weeds, and the passion fruit vines, that are apparently deep-rooted enough to have avoided being cooked by the heat under the plastic.

All I need now is a few strategically placed garden fires between now and the year end to finish off the wire grass, and I should be in good shape to plant vegetables next year for the first time in four years. ...... After I have dug-in dump truck of manure.

WEBlue

Good going on the garden prep! I waited too long to do the black plastic soil "cooking" method. I have two patches that really needed that treatment, but I dithered around thinking I needed a heavier plastic than ordinary black rubbish bags, and by the time I got one (didn't want to shell out for two)... it was suddenly autumn, and way too cool and cloudy for it to work properly.

I should have gone ahead with a couple of rubbish bags 2 weeks ago when we were cursing the heat. Bother!

Pulaski

So instead of putting my feet up after dinner, I have spent the evening in the attic, and outside up an extension ladder threading new coax cable to the data modem/wifi router.

At the moment there is still a coax connection in the attic, but another day I might trying to pull the coax down through the wall to where the modem is connected.

Anyhow, the new cable seems to have improved the data speed and enabled the TV to load Netflix again, which it has struggled to do for several weeks.