August & September Garden Journal

I've waited so long to write this post that it almost seems pointless. But, this is for me as much as for you and I want to document life around here so I guess better late than never. Let's see what I can remember about August.


It was HOT. Yes, it is Phoenix after all, what did I expect? But, with age, health issues, and so many active little bodies in my house all day I didn't do anything in the garden at all. NOTHING! Really not much to do anyway in August here but usually I give perennials a quick little trim so they are not so shaggy in late fall.

And here is the hard cold....or should I say HOT.....truth of August in Phoenix when you don't care enough to brave the outdoors.....yup....it's not pretty. Just needed a little more water.

At my present location, I have a lot more problems with pest than I have ever had. And I feel like giving up to tell the truth. I do plan to work towards planting more resistant varieties in the future if I can find them. And give up on some things like snail vines. I read you can plant squash that are not as likely to attract squash bugs for instance. Now to find out which ones I need.

We have Cactus Wrens that dig like crazy with those long beaks, Quail who eat new sprouts, and rabbits. Sometimes Coyotes decide to invade the yard and dig around if they smell the bones I crush for fertilizer. Coyotes can jump a 6 foot fence.

Asparagus still doing well.

Now for September. The plan was that I would start prepping my beds to be planted on Labor day. Didn't happen. 2 weeks later I still had not prepped but it was hotter than normal too so I gave myself an excuse to stay inside. Last week of September I went out and cleared what was left of anything barely still alive. When I pulled out the watermelon, under the heavy vine layer I found slugs, snails, rollie pollies, squash bugs, grasshoppers and ants. The vine had been attacked by spider mites or some similar tiny bug too.

Remember my 'super' tomatoes? They continued to decline, and all the okra gave up and died. When I went to clean up that area, I noticed what looked like something under ground pushing up causing cracking.

Well, this is what I found growing and swelling under there, have you ever seen anything like this?? Creepy right? Nematodes folks! They invade and live in the roots. Not sure how to attack that problem yet but apparently nematodes love tomatoes and okra.

Last I came to the Luffa vine.It only produced 1 luffa in the spring and nothing since so I planned to tear it out. I was pretty tired and decided to leave it a while longer. I'm glad I waited because it has started to produce now. I guess Fall is the best time for Luffa's.

It is finally cooling off a bit and I have got the gardening itch so guess what I did today, yup planted my back garden with beets, broccoli, and lettuce. Front one this weekend. Yes all my belly aching is just that, I have to try again just in case this time it's better. And if it isn't, well I guess it was the journey that I wanted after all.

In other news, I only have one little guy, the last one, at my house everyday this school year. He is joined by a cousin a day or two a week. It's very strange here at home with out lots of little feet and voices. My little guy gets lonely and I do my best to fill his hours till school is out.

We took a 10 day family vacation to Cabo San Lucas this summer, here are the 6 grand kids that came along, oldest 11 yrs to youngest 2 yrs. While we were gone, weevils invaded out house. I mean invaded! Though they had spread through out the house they were concentrated in the kitchen and we found them in everything, dodads on shelves, vases, even between the glass and photos in frames. They must have had quite the party here alone.

I'm still find their corpses in things on occasion. Apparently they came in a big bag of oatmeal from Costco, which we discovered as the dead bodies were more concentrated around it. The weevils had multiplied in the bag then eaten their way out. What a mess.

Lastly I have been knocking around an idea for a while and decided to just jump in with both feet and so Hill House Soapworks was born. It resides on Facebook, and I have a picture link to the right there under my Facebook thingy. The boutique is little as it should be in this infant state, and I hope it will grow as I have time to grow it. 

And, so very blessedly, last month a lost lamb came home! We thank the Lord.

I link at these parties.

Check out my new Boutique!

Hill House Homestead is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Copyright © 2017 by Hill House Homestead ALL RIGHTS RESERVED