A VERY strange year of gardening

mensplace · July 23, 2010

Like many here, the heat is miserable ...a heat index of 104 today. JUST enough rain for a few minutes each day to mak it feel like the tropics. When I needed honeybees to pollenate my peaches there were none. NOW, as the peaches ripen, the honeybees surround each fruit to eat them, along with some HUGE "June Bugs" ,i.e., coppery green beetles about an inch long and half an inch wide...covering what little surface left by the bees...entire trees covered. At least with SOME rain, a few of the tomato plants have greened up again. Insects now of many descriptions in the main garden. I'm almost wondering if these things, like the fleas on my dog, have mutated and grown resistant to sprays. The fleas seem to love the canned flea sprays to cool off. My poor Cairn is tired of weekly baths. Poor kale and even the herbs are being eaten up. Then there are the 2 1/2 inch grasshoppers eating the tomatos. Sounds like something Biblical going on down here and now they are talking about 5 pound rats from Africa, joining the "KILLER Snakehead", constrictors, African Bees and many other imported threats. Listening to the news, it sounds like some 'B" movie, It's not safe to go out in the garden!!!!! Even the air quality is suspect. I'm NOT going to spray poison every week, so I'll just have to look towards the fall garden, but with August and September heat being even hotter, wonder whether planting now...with the heat and insects...is really worthy of consideration.

July 23, 2010	#1
mensplace Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: USA Posts: 1,013	A VERY strange year of gardening Like many here, the heat is miserable ...a heat index of 104 today. JUST enough rain for a few minutes each day to mak it feel like the tropics. When I needed honeybees to pollenate my peaches there were none. NOW, as the peaches ripen, the honeybees surround each fruit to eat them, along with some HUGE "June Bugs" ,i.e., coppery green beetles about an inch long and half an inch wide...covering what little surface left by the bees...entire trees covered. At least with SOME rain, a few of the tomato plants have greened up again. Insects now of many descriptions in the main garden. I'm almost wondering if these things, like the fleas on my dog, have mutated and grown resistant to sprays. The fleas seem to love the canned flea sprays to cool off. My poor Cairn is tired of weekly baths. Poor kale and even the herbs are being eaten up. Then there are the 2 1/2 inch grasshoppers eating the tomatos. Sounds like something Biblical going on down here and now they are talking about 5 pound rats from Africa, joining the "KILLER Snakehead", constrictors, African Bees and many other imported threats. Listening to the news, it sounds like some 'B" movie, It's not safe to go out in the garden!!!!! Even the air quality is suspect. I'm NOT going to spray poison every week, so I'll just have to look towards the fall garden, but with August and September heat being even hotter, wonder whether planting now...with the heat and insects...is really worthy of consideration.