Summer Garden in bloom

I am LOVING my summer garden and it's thanks to a wet March. We had two inches of rain over normal, which set up my soil and got my seedlings started perfectly. With a few hot days, we had a relatively normal spring temperature-wise with no late frost, so that also helped everything survive.

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after

Unfortunately, today we have excessive heat. To mitigate the damage, I added burlap coverings to the new vertical garden shelf and to some of my growboxes. The "Garden Patch" growboxes have holes in the four corners, which are for the polypropylene (fiberglass) Staking Kit. 

For the vertical shelf (below) I drilled holes into the wood. I used a wire hanger and some of the leftover pieces from the Staking Kit to create supports. The burlap was purchased from Home Depot in a roll, which I cut in half. It's not a perfect system, but hopefully it's better than no shade.

I do need to buy "Mosquito Dunks" to prevent the standing water in the bottom of the growbox from becoming a breeding ground for pests. I had a mist cooling setup, but water was pooling in the trays and I saw bugs hatching in the excess water. So I dumped the water and let the trays bake in the sun for a few days.

I used the "Nutrient Patch" on a non-Garden Patch container. I planted every-other slot with salad greens and it worked out really well (no weeds). I wouldn't say that box was more productive than the boxes without a Nutrient Patch, but they were in a different locations so it's hard to compare.

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after

I'm super excited to harvest seeds from my radish and arugula. The lettuce just started bolting. I got some new succulents and a friend said he'd be happy to share some clones with me. Something completely ate the two varieties of kale, which I'm sad about, but I'll replant for a fall/winter garden.

I have two 'Husky Cherry Red' tomato plants, one 'Jubilee' tomato plant, one 'Red Bull' pepper plant and one 'Jalapeno' pepper plant that are now 110 days old. Of the seeds I planted in March, it's good that some of them may grow to adulthood. I guess it's almost time to plan the winter garden.

There are some recent news articles about Californians going back to water usage at pre-drought levels. I am guilty of this. I had grown fewer and fewer vegetables and leafy greens in order to save water (growing cacti and succulents instead) but I'm going back to growing food since we had a wet enough winter to refill our reservoirs. 

Until water restrictions are reenacted I will continue attempting to produce home-grown veggies. Technically, we're still in a 'Severe Drought' so we'll see what happens between now and winter. There's a trade-off in sustainability between buying fruits and veggies that are trucked in versus home grown fruits and veggies. At least I can be sure my home-grown produce is organic.