Water, water, water
Our yard is getting crispy and brown. What little rain we had in our area missed us. I'm a bit worried about people shooting off fireworks this year. This is the dryest fourth we've had for awhile.

My dad has been sharing cucumbers, zucchini, green beans and some golf ball size tomatoes from his garden. yum : )

Garden is growing, haven't had any problems--till I mulched with straw from the feed store. Instantly, tiny tiny white insects attacked my tomatoes. Killed 7 of them, before I discovered Pyola, nor Sevin works! Today, I learned plain dish soap will work, I just didn't know Aphids came in white too!
then today, the squash bugs moved in--trying sevin on them too. Untill this last heat wave, didn't have garden pests. My Broccoli and Cauliflower-perfect, not a worm one--but now, I'm betting my luck has ran out.
I really need to learn how to put pictures on here, I guess, I can post theem to my Face book page, so maybe it isn't too much harder here.
I check here about every day, but I'm betting the infernal adds are driving some from this site.
I installed automatic watering on my pots on the deck--worked good for 3 days--now the "shrubblers" have quit "shrubbling"! Nothing seems to be stopped up, just wont spray.
Happy Independence Day, Everyone.

I've got a few small tomatoes starting but some of my tomato plants literally haven't grown since I put them in weeks ago. I've begun to use a liquid fertilizer.

We got a lot of rain off and on today.

I've got to finish mulching my shade bed and plant a couple of plants then I'm finished for the year besides maintenance.

Wasting lots of time in the evening trying to find big worms and stinkbugs. No rain here to speak of. June was very dry. It did sprinkle last night but not enough to register on the rain gauge. I have green tomatoes but the leaves on the plants are curling and some have sun scald. I am trying to fight horn worms and stink bugs without spray. Tomatoes have been making me sick the last two summers. I eat them anyway and then don't feel well. If I establish it is the tomatoes themselves and not the spray, I may resort to using something for caterpillars and hornworms.

We got 3/10 inch of rain yesterday evening and a few sprinkles/light rain this evening. I hope we get some more.

I bought a couple packages of gladiola bulbs at the Dollar Store earlier this spring and they're blooming now and so pretty. I wish I had gotten more. They're red ones called 'Oscar'. There were six bulbs in each package for a dollar. I don't know if it's one that will winter over. I hope so.

I saw my first June Bug today. The rain seemed to bring out the butterflies too. I saw several Cabbage White butterflies. Do those use broccoli and cauliflower as a host plant Ceresone? I had lots of worms on my broccoli last year but didn't discover them until it was too late. It killed my appetite for broccoli to see so many but I was hoping, if they destroyed my broccoli, they would at least turn into butterflies.

Hope everyone had a good Fourth of July. I'm pooped. I've had lots of company to cook for the last few days and I'm ready for a quiet day to work outside.

So far I have just had one huge tomato worm. About the only butterflies we are having are the white cabbage butterflies and yes they will lay their eggs on the cole crops!

Yesterday morning while it was still cool, I picked two more quarts of blackberries. This brings me up to 5 quarts in the freezer. I also froze two package of volunteer pole beans.

Next I harvested about 5 lbs of cucumbers. I making Bread and Butter pickles this morning.

We got the little 1/4 inch shower Sunday evening around 8 PM. My MIL on the southwest side of Springfield got 1.5 inches and my Aunt in the Nixa area got 3 inches over 2 or 3 days! About all mine did was wash off the spray. So I sprayed again yesterday morning.

My grab bag of glads is blooming too and I love them. I cut three long stems for the house because the beetles were on them too.

I just finished a hot session of picking bagworms off my evergreen in the front yard. EWWW. Until I saw the bags I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. There was a praying mantis hanging out in the area of the worst damage, hopefully eating something.

Other than that I've been doing nothing. It's just been too hot.

Took advantage of the cooler day and transplanted some Pipevine into larger pots, planted out some coneflower seedlings and moved some zinnias that were too crowded.
I mowed the backyard and weeded a flower bed that's next to my driveway. I put some cardboard and mulch down but I feel like it was a waste of my time because there's Bermuda grass starting to show up there.

I've been picking a little (really little) handful of blueberries every day from my Sunshine Blue. My other two bushes had practically none but it's my fault. I need to transplant them into larger containers. I have a wild blueberry bush too but the berries are only BB size.

Teeandcee - Can you come over and pick off my bagworms? I hate that job. They're so gross. They like our Spruce tree the best and I thought they had killed the top of it but it greened up again this spring. I wonder if birds eat bagworms.