Current temperature? 103ºF. Heat index? 109ºF. Current soil temperature in my garden? 100ºF.

I watered the hell out of the garden this morning, because I knew the heat would be beastly. The soil temp this morning was 90ºF. This morning at the crack of dawn! The intense watering lowered it to 80º, which is acceptable. Then the sun came out, and now my plants are sitting in wet, excessively hot soil. It’s no wonder everything is suffering.

Tomorrow, I am going to mulch the garden, but I don’t think it’s actually going to help as much as Lin thinks it will. With heat like this, when the soil 4″ down is very moist, and it’s still 100ºF at that level, a layer of leaves isn’t going to do anything much to help.

Though the roma tomatoes seem to love it. They are finally taking off and growing, as is the basil. Also, I thought the pepper plant that had finally started blooming was a bell pepper, but I can see now that it isn’t. It’s a pepperoncini, and there are oodles more blooms! Oh how I love those peppers. Can’t wait to pickle some!

So, as usual, good news and bad news in the garden. Still not disgusted enough to give up. After all, in a few more weeks, I’ll be planting the fennel for fall. Mmmmm … homegrown fennel!