I officially began gardening in 2021 in an effort to grow some homegrown produce. I didn’t start my plants by seeds back then. My first year to seed start was in fact 2022 and it went rather well.

Seed starting in 2024 was actually pretty difficult because after enduring my mom’s complaints for the last 2 years, I decided to move my seed-starting operation to the unheated garage. I’ve written about this. She would blame my plants for everything from cold sores to a sneeze to shingles.

The only heat source in the garage was a heat mat to keep the soil from freezing. The plants suffered from the cold and many didn’t germinate. Damping off and fungus gnats also became a huge problem in the garage because while the soil kept drying out, the heating mat provided enough heat for the pests to come alive.

Spring was incredibly wet and cold this year with rain almost everyday. The rainy weather isn’t typical of the place I live. This also caused a myriad of problems like aphids and earwigs infestation in the fruit trees and rose bushes. I can’t tell you how many bottle of insecticides I’ve gone through. I use pytherin for insect control, I heard that’s better than spinosad because pytherin is derived from the chrysanthemum flower. I was glad it didn’t ruin the spring blooms.

Summer came and a whole new set of problems emerged. First, the earwig infestation got much worse. I had an earwig problem in 2023 but it didn’t compare to what I’m currently facing.

I also had a mouse come and ate quite a few plants. Actually, mouse should be plural since another one snuck into the garden over the weekend but it kinda committed suicide by falling into a shallow bucket of water. My mom is chalking this one as death by my hand even though I had nothing to do with it. It gave me quite a fright because I didn’t peek into the bucket before dumping the bucket of water into my plant tower. Now, I’m afraid of what kind of nocturnal creature lurks in my garden.

Then there’s also the heat, which killed one of the trees in the front garden. I had planted lilies and nasturtiums at the foot of the tree, hoping to keep the soil cool. My mom had this thoughts that my flowers had killed the tree by taking away its water and nutrients. Not true but of course, she didn’t believe me.

We are once again in the middle of a heat wave. I spent the weekend stuck inside the house, unable to go out, not even to the grocery store, just because each time I’ve gone out, I’ve felt like the sun was searing my skin. Even with sunscreen, my skin burned. The only time I’ve been able to go out is in the early mornings, that is, if I can wake up.

With the sun rising at 5:56 AM and setting at around 9 PM, I feel like I have a lot of time but really, I don’t. Time flies when I’m in the garden. I only wish I’m doing fun tasks these days instead of spending the time pulling weeds, applying insect dust, and coming up with ways to prevent rodents. Still, I try to squeeze in a few minutes now and then for pictures, particularly before the heat of the day sets in because I feel these pictures not only help me document but it also helps me see these precious blooms in a way my human eyes cannot.

For #SundayStill