Pineapple tomatoes, most of the squash, the lettuce I had going to seed, the last of the radishes, several cucumbers, all but one of the okra, and some of the corn have now been ripped from the ground and are now in a pile of refuse. I also trimmed off all the ugly, diseased looking leaves on the remaining tomato plants and yanked a whole bunch of new weeds. I’d have probably pulled up more stuff, but one hour out in the heat was just about enough. It’s just awful out there today.

I think I am going to start my new plants in my starter tray out on the front porch. They’ll get morning sun out there, but it stays mostly cool on the porch in the afternoon. I think it’s just too hot for baby plants out in the beds. Maybe I’ll do it both ways and pick and choose the best of whatever comes up and grows. As soon as my core temperature returns to something closer to normal for a human, I’ll be popping some seeds into little pots. Tomorrow I’ll stick some out in the garden.

There is some good news from the garden! All is not woe and death! One of the bell pepper plants bloomed in my absence and even has a little pepper on it! Also, a couple of the basil plants are finally starting to look really good! None of this is going as well as I had hoped it would, but gardening in Texas is hard. I guess I just need to be happy and thankful for whatever I do manage to get out of it … not just food, but the enjoyment of doing it as well.

The remaining cucumbers are infested with aphids. It’s too hot to spray with soapy water right now (it’ll burn the leaves), so tonight when it gets a little cooler, I’ll be out there slaughtering aphids. Though I have to admit, I am considering just pulling the rest of the up and replanting all the cucumbers. None of them look so great, and aphids don’t seem to be the only problem.

I don’t know if I want to expand the garden any further next year. I’m not entirely disgusted with it, but I’d like the small garden to be doing better before I have a much larger garden to deal with. I guess I’ll wait and see how I feel as fall approaches. Maybe I’ll feel differently when it isn’t so blazing hot and sticky outside.