2026 CW33 - Paved with Good Intentions
“The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions” is a proverb thought to have been derived from Ecclesiasticus 21:10
This week in the garden, those good intentions led to the ruin of our week-old SunPatiens recently added to the front hanging baskets. Sara and I were quite concerned about being able to keep up with the watering needs of these plants in their coco coir liners. In an attempt to combat this made-up problem, we heavily mulched these plants from the start. Unbeknownst to us, Sunpatiens are incredibly resilient in hanging baskets, and are not super thirsty. Additionally, they are sensitive to “choking” at the base with mulch.
Therefore, despite all our efforts, we returned from a 5-day stay at the beach to find our baskets both soaked and wilted. After a short bit of research, we cleared the mulch from the baskets with hopes they will all recover in a few days!
Big Picture Check In
Checking in on the yard as a whole, everything is quite happy from a recent rain event! Here we have the St. Augustine lawn in the backyard freshly cut with the lush Vegetable Gardens in the background. Further back, the Dragon Wing Begonias and the Silver Falls are continuing to stun hanging from the Live Oak.
Gardener Math Progress
Due to our beach trip, we did not have the time to tackle the front yard bed transformations for the cheap hydrangeas we picked up. However, we did get the Majesty Palm nestled into its corner behind the tea bar! It may not be making a striking impression yet, but thanks to a smart plug and a generously powered grow-light we expect this palm to perform fantastically! All-together this $15 “cheap” palm ended up costing us ~$125 (Pot, light, fixture, etc.).
Water-wise
Ironically considering the cover story this week, watering was a theme early in the week! The vegetable garden was struggling after about a week of hot sunny days with no rain. Thanks to our thick mulching and high-quality soil, we do not actually water the vegetable garden very often. For that reason, we don't have automated drip irrigation installed, forcing us to resort to overhead watering. This can introduce issues, but as long as care is taken to use this tool responsibly, it can be a great occasional solution!
Passions Collide
Here we have a collision of passions. One evening as we walked the garden, I looked up through the Loofah Trellis to see British Airways Flight BAW243 on its way from London to Mexico City operated by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Aviation is not just where I work, but it is also a passion of mine, so it was fun to see this collision with my other passion of gardening!
While on the subject of our trellis-bound plants, I wanted to highlight the incredible performance of Sara’s Black-Eyed Susan vines that have almost completely covered their 16ft cattle panel arch!
Vegetables in the Heat of Summer!
Checking in on the performance of the vegetable garden, we have lots of progress this week!
Our Purple Yardlong Beans have begun to mature from bloom to bean, with several ready for picking this week! We hope to make a large harvest of these beans next week for preservation!
In other areas of the garden, both our Delicata Squash and Cantaloupes are continuing to put on some size! The cantaloupes have been especially productive with countless melons spread throughout the garden!
As we’ve seen, no week goes without a harvest! This week we did end up picking a few of the Purple Yardlong Beans as well as some Cucumbers!
Garden Supervisors!
This week there were not any notable garden pests, so we’ll just sign off with this check-in from the original garden supervisors Scout and Yoda as they lounge amongst the plants!
