Hello, come on in, let’s head on out back and have our coffees. I can use a strong cup this week and I bet you would immediately feel the difference in temperature. Remember last week? It was hovering around 100-degrees? Well, today is hovering around 85-degree.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you we had a few drops of rain this week. At last! According to the weatherman, the last time we had detectable amount of rain was at the end of May. I will take a few drops of rain any day if it meant there’d be cooler weather.
If we were having coffee, I would show you my container garden. Oh, and please ignore the crunchy yellow lawn, we are still in a historic drought. I would also show you the drip irrigation tubing installed in the raise garden beds, raspberry bushes, and burning bush, which should be flaming red in the fall.
As we tour, I would ask if you remember the bottom picture from this post early this month. The top photo was taken last night. How much difference 20 days made! I even have bean harvest already. Unfortunately, for some strange reason, mom boiled the bean. Yuck! These beans are meant to be stir-fried and sautéed, not boil until it’s yellow and rubbery.
I would also tell you I installed all the drip irrigation myself. It had resulted in a couple of late nights, joint and back pain but don’t worry, I will recover. Mom didn’t pity my pain at all. “Serve you right,” she chided, “for doing useless projects.” She rants all the time about the sprinkler system use too much water even though she’s not paying the water bill.
“Drip irrigation is designed to save 50-70% water.” I told her. She scoffed even though I wasn’t making it up. The local news channel had strongly urged residents to use drip irrigation when they can, even the city recommends drip irrigation. It’s a lot more efficient and I don’t know why she’s fighting me on this. She has such an old school way of thinking – composting BAD, drip irrigation BAD, mulching BAD. I’m trying to make the Earth a better place – less garbage, water conservation – and it seems like she’s doing everything she can to trash the place. I told her I have made donations to environment and wildlife conservation charities, and she said, “those charities are liars.”
I’m sorry, what?
Anyway, enough rambling, let’s finish touring the garden. Here are my tomatoes.
After hearing a lot of gardeners raving about the Greenstalk vertical garden planter, I decided to try it. Last night, I dug up one of my cucumber plants and moved it into one of the 30 planting spaces. It didn’t look so good after transplant but after a drink of fish emulsion, it perked right up. I hope I didn’t man-handle its roots too much when I dug it up. I also hope by moving one of the 4 cucumber plants, I will give the remaining 3 plants the adequate space to grow.
In addition to cucumbers, I also moved 2 green bean plants, planted 6 pepper plants at the top tier, 5 pickling cucumber plants, 4 cosmos, and a sunflower. That’s 18 out of 30. Maybe I should thin the cherry tomatoes patches by moving a few to the vertical planter. Hmm…
If we were having coffee, I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.
This is Another Story 
You sure have a green thumb yinglan…
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Oh not really, just watched a lot of YouTube videos. 😀
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Ohh kk nice
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Your plants look fabulous! Especially the tomato plants – well done. The warm weather probably has made them thrive too.
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Thank you. The warm weather definitely helped but the recent cooler temperature also helped.
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Fun stuff YingLan. I miss gardening this year. Last year my spaghetti plant collection almost took over our backyard and always seemed thirsty. We got lots of squashes, but arguably too many because we could not eat or give away enough to not end up throwing some away.
I am intrigued by the tall round planter. Interesting and looks like fun. You’re going to enjoy some great veggies. Send you mom to the store for her own since she had no respect for yours.
Blessings
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Well, I will have to be the judge of that when I finally have a harvest of my cucumbers because based on my past gardening experiences, there is always a few that will die along the way. If I get a big harvest of pickling cucumbers, then I’ll just have pickle them. 😀
I’ve seen some miraculous things on YouTube regarding what this planter can do and hope to achieve them myself. I just hope the plant roots don’t get burned in those pots since they do get pretty warm.
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Your tomato plants look great. As I was reading I glanced up at my own garden and realized I didn’t get myself a tomato plant this year, so now I am envious (hahaha). Thanks for the virtual coffee, hope you have a lovely week.
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It’s never too late to grow tomatoes unless you have a short growing season like I do, then there’s always next year. 🙂
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Yes, next year for sure.
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Your plants look great! And kudos to you for forging on despite the negativity. (I pray for you every day.) My garden is still very small. I’ll have to do an update at our next coffee share. I did give away some blackberry an mulberry saplings that had sprouted up. I’m glad a friend could use them. Hope you have a great week!
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Thank you. I’m looking forward to seeing your garden update. 🙂
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They look great. Mine aren’t doing so well, so I think I’m going to replant. My tomatoes are doing well, but nothing else is really coming up (I do seeds except for tomatoes). I’m disappointed because I was so excited to have my containers again.
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It’s better than nothing, I guess. I think gardening is all about trial and error. Sometimes, the seed might be bad while some plants just don’t like the environment. I’m sure sooner or later, everything will work out. Good Luck. 🙂
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