A morning spent in garden centers is usually a morning well-spent. We wouldn’t have had to spend all morning in garden centers if Home Depot had an inkling of a clue that not everyone wants bug poisons that kill 150 different kinds of bugs and are equally lethal to humans and animals. It took us three tries, but we finally found Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki. It’s organic. It’s natural. It kills caterpillars dead. There may be some butterfly deaths due to my use of it, but I haven’t seen a butterfly in my yard in ages anyway. I have seen entirely too many Hornworms. Hopefully, that problem was solved as soon as I sprayed down every square inch of every leaf in my garden.

I also have bags of Dillo Dirt, compost, and shredded cedar mulch. I’ll be getting my transplanting done later when it’s at least slightly cooler than the surface of the sun outside. It’s far too hot to be out there doing anything right now. I might even wait until early morning tomorrow.

Lin came home with the things he needs to put in a water spigot in the back yard too. Maybe eventually he’ll get around to actually doing that now.

We have officially spent too much money on my silly garden at this point. I have got to get these things producing something. I’m hoping that keeping the Hornworms off the plants, replanting some of them, moving them to a slightly less sunny area, and adding some new topsoil and mulch to the boxes will help. I have noticed a slight improvement in leaf color and growth the last several days, which may just be happenstance, but I am attributing it to using my Epsom’s salt foliar spray and giving them all some slightly off milk earlier this week. The peppers even have flowers on them again. Well, except for the one that was completely eaten last night. Grrr.

The female cucumber flowers haven’t opened yet, but they look like they will do so tomorrow. I have my fox hair brush ready for pollinating! Bzzzzz … I’m a bee!

Time for pizza, and then I guess laying around being lazy until it gets cooler outdoors. I can stand working in heat, but I can’t stand working in sunlight like what we have been having. The UV index is off the charts! Yuck.