Snce this hot time of the summer is more like the doldrums – it’s hard to get energy up to go out into 100+ degree heat, even to water the plants that are surviving.  But the tatume squash I wrote about last time is thriving!  One squash gives me two meals.  And it is still sending tendrils outward and blooming.  Definitely going to be on my list for next year!

The okra I planted is doing pretty well – I just didn’t plant enough of it!  It is a long-podded okra, that doesn’t get woody when it is over 2-3 inches long.  I like it, especially when I cut a pod in the morning, slice it and fry it up with my fresh-from-the-next eggs!  Yum.

I have been flicking my tomato blossoms whenever I had a chance – but the plants are just taking a break.  Why flick the blossoms?  Tomatoes are wind-pollinated.  That means that vibrations release the pollen.  Bees and other insect pollinators are not needed.  A couple of years ago my daughter asked why, when her plants bloomed as much as mine, I had more tomatoes – it is because I flicked them.

I was watching the lantana, which is heating loving and blooms like crazy in the Texas mid-summer heat, and saw a butterfly moving from blossom to blossom.  Then it would start to fly away, but turn around for just another drink of the nectar.  Must have been pretty tasty, because that butterfly kept working the blooms on that plant for about 15 minutes.  A long time.  Note to self…more lantanas.