Another Toasty Day In Paradise

Hail the ever blooming and almost prehistoric in size zucchini. But just now in mid July establishing edible squashes (is that the term?) yet to come to ripeness. I am hoping since this round three or is it four comes to a positive conclusion. Perhaps zucchini bread, zucchini latkes , salad fixings and all those things one does with zucchini. I have a vision of public acclaim and perhaps my own website bearing the awesome title California Woman Who Can't Grow Zucchini. All when for years I have thought that zucchini could take over the world simply by tossing the last of the crop into a unsuspecting compost pile. 

Then there are two of the largest of all the potential Rocky Persian cucumbers. I love these little guys . I originally purchased Persian cucumbers at Trader Joes many years back. These are gentle on my tummy and apparently a good variety for pickling, 

A good number on the plant at various stages of maturity. Getting anxious!

 

Another Patio Eggplant coming on. This little gem of a plant produces a mini eggplant that is 2-3 inches long when harvested and has a very tender edible skin. I enjoy them cut in about 1/8 inch slice and sautéed in olive oil with whatever other veggies cross my mind. I have harvested for almost a month at this date and enjoyed a couple of times a week. Even sent home some for my sister to try out. This great little plant will be in my garden next year!

  

Another little bell ringer is the Indigo Rose Tomato. The VW Bug of the tomato family. Compact and more like a bush the tomato's are about the size of a small apricot when ripe for eating and very mild . 

It is very prolific or just likes it here.

 

 

The standby Sun Golds. Prolific and very nice balance between sweet and acid. Sorry the fruit in the photo is not that lovely gold hue but at my garden those don't linger on the vine for very long. 😊

Itsy bitsy radishes coming up . 

I have several itsy Honey Dews growing. It will be interesting as they grow to see what kind of support system I come up with . I am hoping for those large spectacular  melons I get at the summer farmers market. Perhaps I shall give Miss. Dolly Parton a holler to see if she can send me any of her unmentionables to support my melons.

East side of front porch latticework done by my handy man on Friday.

Since we worked with as much of  product I had on hand a bit of creative thinking came into play.

The large rocks in front aren't holding up the add on . But at photo time hadn't been removed.

The far side of steps on back porch. the fronts of the top two are purchased redwood and the lower face was a redwood board in my shop stash left by the previous owner. The paving steps were there already just rearranged. The last one was installed this morning after photos yesterday. 

 

Same porch only SE view. The blueberries live in the pots . I got a nice little first year crop. The berry plants will get larger pots this summer to give room to go. Due to the gopher issue here I will continue to grow my blueberries in pots as I did in Shasta county. Only up in Shasta the goal of the pots was to be able to grow on my deck with more traffic so the birds became shy about cleaning them off lol.

The other project this weekend was my handyman's uncle hauling over his large wood splitter and making short work of the seven trees that PGE took down at their cost in October. The arbor company that did the harvesting kindly left them cut in 24 inch long logs and stacked them for curing. The trees are white oak and the curing is more rapid than the live oak we had in Shasta. Now that they are split in August and September we will be moving them to the new log area into a temporary storage situation. Unless I somehow manage to get the wood shed put up before then. 

It is toasty today but I have managed to limit the use of the air conditioner by closing up all windows and blinds angled to provide light but discourage blazing sunlight. On the back of the cabin I have the same lovely shades we had in Shasta. They deter 96% of the UV rays and drop the house temperature by six degrees or more. Right now it is 102 outside with 17 % humidity and 6mph SW winds. Inside it is 83 with 30% humidity with my three ceiling fans one in the kitchen dinning area, living room and top of the stairwell which influences the rooms upstairs. So far I have only run the AC mid June three very  humid (for us) and hot days. And  only a few hours setting it to go on only after it hit 80 degrees and then maintain that temperature. I try to keep all my windows open at night and until about 8 AM to 10 AM in the morning. 

So much for this and that. Have a great weekend and make time for a day of rest.