2026 CW26 - A Normal Week in the Garden
Well folks, this week's blog is a bit of an unusual one. At least for me. I am writing to you from the kitchen island on the small screen of my laptop. Candles light the room; the air is still. A distant rumble rolls in the background of the otherwise silent evening. An afternoon thunderstorm has just rolled through, robbing us of our precious electricity for the evening. You'll see more of this in next week's blog (hopefully I don't find myself wheeling out the generator late tonight to preserve our freezers full of produce).
This Week's Big Picture
Stepping back from the intricacies of the delicate blooms and young fruits, we get the opportunity to appreciate the serenity of the half acre paradise we have carved out for ourselves in our little corner of the world. We spent Sunday evening on the Back Porch, enjoying a drink, and appreciating what we have built together here. Sara and I have spent the last week or two looking at new houses, and ultimately came to the conclusion that there's no place like home. We may move some day, but for now West Santos is where we'll stay.
One silver lining to the tree falling on the garage is the plethora of fresh mulch which we now have at our disposal! Sara spent some time freshening up the Raised Beds and preparing for an extension of the mulched garden space by removing some sod. Everything always looks better with a fresh coat of mulch!
Freezer Frenzy!
After the mass preservation of the plentiful pepper harvest over the last few weeks, we have realized that additional freezer space will be an absolute MUST this year.
After a lot of consideration we landed on this configuration of two small 7.1 cubic foot Freezers configured as one large french door freezer. This allowed us to keep our wire shelving in place (critical as it houses all of the life sustaining pet supplies our fury friends rely on!) without sacrificing any additional footprint in the utility room. We are very happy with how this turned out and look forward to filling these full of home grown produce throughout the summer!
Transplation Sensation
Fine, it's not a real word, but it sounded better than transplantation!
Once we finished relaxing and appreciating the yard Sunday evening, the real work began! Sara took to the garden to extract a resident Echinacea from its grow bag in favor of a better home. She loosened the roots the best she could with a shovel, and lifted the root ball out.
She then found an appropriate space in one of the Raised Beds, cleared the freshly laid mulch, and nestled the Echinacea into its new home. After a few days, it looks like it has been there the entire time!
HOOOOLD! HOOOOOLD! - The Rainy Season is Upon Us
As we dive headfirst into Summer, June is showing us what April could not! We have progressed from showers to full blown deluges!
Here you can see our view from the living room as the rain beats everything beneath it into submission!
The radar tells the tale, with county wide coverages of dense rain and heavy lightning.
Vegetable Update!
This week we check in on a lot of our mid-summer vegetable companions! The Eggplant continue to put out enormous violet fruits. These plants absolutely adore the hot temperatures and high humidity and are making the most the unbearable June that we have been presented with.
Not to be outdone in terms of their ability to stomach the suffocating heat, the Okra have begun to set fruit! Of all the vegetables we grow in our garden, these love the high temperatures the most. Though they are only a few feet tall now, by the end of August these plants will tower over the garden at an impressive eight feet tall and produce an overwhelming amount of fresh Okra. Back on the porch, we have Cayenne Pepper plants in grow bags which are becoming heavy with future harvests!
Moving along in the vegetable garden, we find Sara's repurposed trellis (left over from when we built the Mandeville trellis along the house) which is now supporting a healthy cluster of Pole Beans. We plan on extending this trellis system in the coming weeks to accommodate more pole beans. Alongside that, we have some young Watermelons just starting to show their stripes in contrasting displays of deep, dark green and bright lime yellow.
Floral Foundations!
No matter what is going on in the rest of the garden, we can always rely on some flower somewhere bringing life to the property! I know much of the last few week s has been filled with repeat-bloomers that have persisted for weeks on end, but this week we bring out some new contenders!
Out front, we have our first signs of blooms on one of our Crepe Myrtle trees! This is an exciting milestone for summer, as these are some of Sara and I's favorites. This particular image is of a tree we purchased from a local nursery, but most of the trees in our property are actually from Sara's late grandmother's house. Hopefully we can share blooms from those in the coming weeks.
Also new this week is the sudden appearance of Moon Flower blooms in the middle of the day! The massive white blooms are a very bright spectacle against the backdrop of the fence, and it is lovely to see them out during the day!
Next up is one of Sara's favorites. We grow this from seed every year and, due in part to its vining nature, it requires some patience. Well, the wait is over! The Black-Eyed Susan has shown its first blooms for the year, as it climbs the towering arch which I built with some cattle panels between two of the raised beds. It is always nice to see this familiar recurring garden character come to life this time of year.
Speaking of recurring characters, the Zinnia and Mandeville continue to pump out an stream of endless colorful blooms, dazzling the driveway and backyard with splashes of bright pink!
Pets and Pests!
This week's pest section includes several varieties of insects which I do not think have been featured on the blog before! We have what is referred to down south as a "Stink Bug" but is more commonly known as a Leaf-footed Bug. Alongside that was a Spider which at first appeared to be a common crab spider. However, upon further investigation, it appears to be of some other type which I do not know!
Obviously, no blog would be complete without the appearance of at least one of the Garden Supervisors! This week we have Scout and Henry. Scout, a big fan of lounging in any form outdoors, and Henry, a big fan of following Scout, can both be seen here enjoying the luscious grass and fresh mulch in the backyard.
