July begins with a bang or more like a hot furnace, as temperatures have shot up into the high 90’s and will continue doing so for the next 5-6 days. I will be keeping a close eye on the veggie garden, making sure the plants get enough water until this heat wave subsides by early next week.
July 7, 2026
The heat has let up a bit, but the humidity continues to make it feel as almost the same temperature as last week. Fortunately, clouds covered the sun for most of the day, allowing me to do some harvesting (lots of tomatoes and potatoes) and cut the grass. Lots of weed needing to be cleared, hopefully the weather will cooperate. It is the hot days of July with weeds, humidity and heat all ganging up on Magnolia Gardens.
July 12, 2026
And the garden keeps producing and producing, as the summer heat provides a great venue for harvest. The beefsteak tomatoes are now ripening, along with the Amish Paste tomatoes. Pickles are plentiful and cucumbers are also maturing, although at a bit of a slower pace. Zucchini is now at the “give away” stage and, today, I picked my first eggplant off the single seed I planted in mid-June at the request of my grandson.
The grass gets cut 2-3 times a week, and each time it is higher than I would like. The weeds are loving this heat and it is almost impossible to keep up with cutting them back. I did do some weedwacking today, only to run out of string, so I will need to order some more, as there is still plenty more to cut down.
The plan is to get broccoli into the ground, plant some more pickles and cucumbers and leave one area open for growing fall peas.
We will see how things go, as temperatures are going back up into the 90’s this coming week.
July 18, 2026
Canadian wildfires cause major problems down here in Delaware, as the air is filled with minute particles resulting in unsafe breathing conditions for someone my age. I am quite disappointed that the government north of us doesn’t seem very interested in fixing this annual problem. I still have memories of being amazed how clean forests in Germany were, compared to what you find here in the US and Canada. Not only are trees all grown in straight rows, but weeds, saplings and dead branches are far and few to be found. Meanwhile you go into any state or national park in this country and the underbrush is so bad, any time there is a drought, fires from lightening will ignite the dry growth and create major forest fires.
When looking at maps, it is as if there is a funnel that runs from west of Ontario straight down through NY state, Pennsylvania and Delaware. An orange glow has been apparent for almost a week now. Finally, today a cold front has come through and rain, along with some strong winds seems to have cleared the air a bit.
July 30, 2026
Well, another month has come and gone by. July was quite dry until this last week when we finally got some much needed rain. The good news is that harvest was excellent, with tomatoes leading the way and hardly any of them cracking or being insect “mauled”. Pickles, Cukes, Potatoes and Peppers all did very well and produced a freezer filled with saved produce. As August is ready to roll along, I am putting in a row of pickles and a row of cucumbers where the potatoes used to be. I am also going to plant a few sunflowers and see how they do. I already have a few growing from where the birds had eaten their sunflower seeds since early April. I am also going to plant some fall broccoli where the previous collards and cabbage grew. It will be interesting to see how all this works out.
This will be my first try at a second planting, since we no longer head south in the fall and I can keep the garden going until late November.
