Roots N Boots

…The first hottest day of the year. Yeah, I did that accidentally, as I was so excited to have the garden built and have some small vegetable plants in my hand. We bought the plants from a local garden store the evening before, and the next morning I was out there with my string line and tape measure, marking out distances between plants, and trying to keep them in neat, straight lines. (Little did I know that three months later, it would look like a jungle in there). I took several hours to mark everything and plant all the veggies, several cherry and regular tomato plants, zuccini, bell peppers, snow peas, and pepperoncini’s for the husband. I soaked everything that evening, making sure it was after 6 PM, and then the next day is was a swealtering 90+ degrees outside, and the vegetables started wilting. I was so nervous because I didn’t want to water them midday, as I have been told by several people to not let water bead on the leaves when the sun is out. By evening, everything looked very sad, and I sat out there soaking all of the plants. By the following evening, we had lost all the snow pea plants, and 2 pepper plants, but everything else actually started perking up. We didn’t lose any other plants to that heat wave, but I definitely learned my lesson. I also learned another lesson: don’t plant pepperoncini’s in the garden where they will be watered every day. Apparently they only like to be water once a week, so unfortunately I lost those plants as well. But we sure did get the mother load of tomatoes!