#WeekendCoffeeShare – Riding Out a Heatwave in the Garden


Good morning! Welcome to #weekendcoffeeshare, hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer, please come on in and have a drink and a chat.

We’ve finally reached the end of a heat wave here in the intermountain west of the US. It’s been a brutal June so far. Just as my peas are coming to fruition, we were hit by a heat wave. The temperatures this week have been in the upper 90’s to 100. It’s the dry kind of heat with less than 20% relative humidity. When you walk outside, you will feel like you’re in an oven, not to mention the UV index is insanely high.

The plants have been suffering, at least the ones that are not under shade cloth. Last night, I found the leaves of the English Thyme crispy and yesterday morning, I also discovered the bottom leaves of the dwarf fig tree crispy.

There’s supposed to have a massive 20-degrees temperature drop in the two days – from the upper 90’s to the 70’s. This would mean I can finally transplant the remainder seedlings into the garden because it would be cool enough to not fry them.

If we were having coffee, I would share a breakfast I made this week. Please do not judge me on plating, all it matters to me is the taste and it was delicious. I harvested some purple potatoes this week. Before I harvested, I searched online to find out what the purple potato taste like. Most say nutty. I didn’t know what “nutty” meant until I made some smashed purple potatoes. It tasted a little like roasted nut. Is that what nutty means?

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been enjoying the flowers in the garden this year. I planted nasturtium last year and fell in love with its lovely tender flower. This year, I’ve tried a darker color nasturtium. The seed packet said “dark velvet” nasturtium but I guess, I’ll take this dark red.

The yellow calendula has been blooming since the beginning of June and I was surprised by how yellow it was. I had the take the highlights and exposure down as I was editing the photo, because otherwise, you might need a pair of sunglasses just to look at the photo.

I bought the blue lobelia from a nursery in April. I know I made a promise to not buy plants at the nursery but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes, one must be the lazy gardener.

I had to look up the seed packet to see what that flower was despite it’s the biggest one showed on the packet. This flower is a Shirley Poppy. It’s a poppy variety originated from England. I find that they are a joy to look at from afar but don’t look the same up close. I still love them though, just as I love all my plant children.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I cannot believe my mom managed to put another tree in danger. After I managed to grow so many things in the garden, I no longer believe in black thumbs but, truly, my mom has the blackest thumb.

First, she poisons the plum tree with herbicide despite my repeatedly told her to spray this poison. Then she went and dump buckets of water on the cherry tree in the front garden despite telling her I just watered the tree. These trees are currently suffering and I feel that only time will tell whether they will recover but of course, she would never admit she’s at fault.

I appreciate you stopping by. Until next we chat. 🙂

22 thoughts on “#WeekendCoffeeShare – Riding Out a Heatwave in the Garden

  1. OH yum! I love purple potatoes and they are so hard to find in our area. We are expecting a heat wave this week with temps in the mid to upper 90’s but our weather is usually quite humid… humid or dry I feel like heat is heat and it’s all hot. LOL. I hope those temperatures have broken by now and it’s cooling off a bit.

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    1. I feel humidity makes the heat much hotter. I remember when I was living in Texas, no matter what I did, I couldn’t escape the heat but now I can escape the heat now but standing under a tree or walking into the house. There was a 10 degree cool down today. It’s in the mid-80’s and much better. Good luck with your heat wave.

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  2. Hot… here in Florida, too! Felt felt like we were having coffee together! Actually, I was drinking a Starbuck’s Frappacino, while reading your post. Purple Potatoes. … Mmmmm!!!
    Hope it cools off, soon!
    Love…. WeekendCoffeeShare! ☕️

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’ve never tried the Frappacino. I would’ve gone for the iced shaken espresso venti, that’s my favorite summer drink. My manager is from Florida but I don’t think it’d be my kind of place. Too humid.
      It’s actually cooled off about 10 degrees, still hot but a little better than yesterday.

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    1. I tried mocha a few years ago, didn’t like it with the whipped cream. It left a layer of oil on top. Maybe I’ll try it without the whipped cream.

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  3. You surely love your garden. Your flowers are beautiful. We have a similar poppy flower in my region (west Balkan), it just has a darker and more intense red shade. I never tried purple potatoes, but would like to. Mind if I step by for a cup of coffee? 😊

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    1. Ooh, I would love to that poppy flower in my garden. That’s probably an European variety. I love the dark color flowers. The typical orange, yellow, red, and white feel too normal for me. I love to have dark colors in the garden.

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      1. It’s a deal! I like the mixture of colors, but I never had a garden of my own, so I can’t tell what would I like in it. Me and my family grow vegetables for food, and have a small garden with flowers and grass, but it’s somewhat unkept.

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  4. Lovely flowers and nutty purple potatoes. You are amazing. I’ve been a preoccupied so it seems you came out of snow into a heat wave. It’s just a bit chilly here in Cape Town, but I feel the cold more as I age. Snow sounds awfully cold to me.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Actually, it’s more like come out of the rain into a heat wave. 🙂 It was a cold and rainy winter and spring and now, we haven’t had rain for almost a month. It’s actually warmer when it snows. The cold comes when Mother Nature is trying to melt the snow.

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    1. I’m looking forward to harvest more potatoes soon. Those potatoes were delicious and rare since I’ve never seen potatoes that’s purple inside and out.

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  5. Yinglan, I always love seeing your garden photos. Thank goodness you got some cool weather coming after that heat wave. It gets pretty hot here in Northeast Florida, but we do have humidity. This last week I was in Paris, where they had temperatures with an average high between 65 and 70. It was so refreshing!

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    1. 65-70 sound really nice and I can grow some very nice greens in that temperature. 🙂 The weather has been weird this year and I heard on the news this morning that there will be snow in some places. Snow in the middle of June? Wow!

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