Springing back from the heat wave

Nobody has moved into any of my fence birdhouses yet, alas. I will try putting a few up under the eaves in the shade. Cornflowers came up nicely this year, though!

We had another of our spring heat waves this past week, with daytime temps in the high 90's (F) and daily watering to try to save young plants. The timing was spectacularly bad: traditionally US Mother's Day is the time to set out tender plants like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Many seedlings had only a few days in the ground before the heat slammed into us. This meant that their root systems weren't necessarily developed sufficiently to support the plant during a time of great stress.

More seedlings waiting for kinder weather, or for me to finish preparing the other beds.

I had to spot-water my teensy pepper seedlings in the mornings all week, and hope that providing water directly at the plant would provide a margin of safety. I lost a couple of them anyway, but the majority are good so far. The peppers I transplanted a few weeks earlier into my hydroponic trays, however, adored the hot weather and doubled in size during the past week!

A pair of sweet pimiento peppers flank a ping tung long eggplant.

Other heat-lovers included the basil in my new blue herb planter. It's an ordinary strawberry pocket planter, which I populated with kitchen herbs rather than strawberries. I moved it into 'bright shade' during the heat wave, as the herbs were planted only a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to be sure they didn't cook in the planter. I really recommend making a planter like this, so you won't have to constantly police your herb bed to keep some of the busy herbs like sage or oregano from crowding out and overshading others. My tiny 2 square feet of herb bed had sprawled to over 9 square feet through the fall and winter, and I had to cut it WAY back a week or two ago to get good access back to the fence.

Dual pockets of basil, plus sage, marjoram, italian oregano, and a crown of english thyme.

Normally I'd have beans by now, but I was late to the game and didn't plant my usual Monte's Italian heirloom (a variety of borlotti bean). The pill bugs, aka "The Eaters", have been wreaking havoc on bean seedlings of all kinds, eating away parts of the stem until the leaves hang by a tiny thread. Of a dozen bush bean seedlings, only two have survived so far, and they seem to have gotten 4 of the 6 Monte's Italian that I planted a week or two ago. I need to get some diatomaceous earth and hope that slows them down. I should also be 'baiting' with melon rind, or a saucer lid, or other thing they can hide under so I can remove them. Gotta get on that!

At least my painted lady runner beans came back on their own, an annual that goes perennial in this mild climate. They stopped setting flowers during the week of insane heat, but should get back to it now.

It wouldn't be a garden update if it didn't have a shot of our Garden Helper, usually found napping on the job. It's better than sitting by the bird watering area, thinking impure thoughts, so I won't complain.

Hey, when you're this gorgeous, you need to really max out on the beauty sleep!