Singin’ in the heat
The heat index is somewhere between OMG and WTH. It’s so brutal not only did I fry this morning’s eggs on my front walk, I used my mailbox as a toaster oven to bake a small batch of cookies. Talk about “going green!”
Honestly I really am the reincarnation of the Wicked Witch of the West… “I’m melting, melting, melting.”
It’s so hot places on my body that I didn’t even know could sweat are sweating… toes, ears, eye lids and my usual common sense about what to keep covered up has, well, evaporated. I am really and truly a hot mess.
This weather isn’t doing much for my garden either. Now I’m no Heather Hacking (author of this paper’s “Sow There!” column) but I’m no slouch either. OK I admit in this heat I may be slouching a little but only slouching over enough to tend to the beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkin, artichokes and cucumbers in my garden.
It’s a good thing we don’t have neighbors close by because I’m out there every morning in my sunhat and tie-dye pattern Crocs (which make me look like I have the feet of a Hobbit) and not much else doing what needs to be done — watering, feeding and weeding. In the past week however none of this has seemed to be enough.
The pumpkin leaves are turning yellow and brown and it along with the other squash plants are losing blossoms right and left. The tomatoes are also suffering from “blossom drop.” The pepper plants are producing fruit the size of golf balls. The bean plants are pretty but not flowering. Even the artichokes look droopy and sad.
I double checked to make certain I was watering enough and feeding enough of the right nutrients. I was. So I looked up why my plants were struggling and the answer for each was the same: excessively hot temperatures. And there you have it.
The flowers in my garden however are going berserk. I have sunflowers and zinnias galore. Both the nasturtium and marigold seem like mutants, all are nearly 3 feet tall with hundreds of blossoms.
If we had to survive off what I grow, we’d be living on steady diet of nasturtium smoothies and getting very thin.
I was kvetching to a friend about the state of my garden, particularly about my cucumbers which have been stagnant at about 5 inches tall long before the heat wave. They were getting water, food and were planted in good dirt, but they just weren’t growing. She said when her plants did that, she played music for them and sang to them suggesting maybe I should try that.
Like I said, it’s a good thing I don’t have closeby neighbors because I’m willing to try anything. So on Thursday morning while I was watering, feeding and weeding in my sun bonnet and Hobbit shoes, I sang my head off.
I should have known this was not a good idea when after just a few minutes the three dogs and one cat began howling in accompaniment but I just thought they were on “Team Kyra’s Garden” supporting my efforts. Bless their hearts. And so, we all “sang” to the plants. We covered everything from Motown to church hymns and threw in a few choruses of “Hotel California” just for good measure.
On Friday morning I went for my usual garden foray only to discover that every single cucumber plant was dead. Every. Last. One. Dead as door nails.
I was heartbroken, and when I told my beloved husband he gently put an arm around me, kissed my temple and said, “I’m sorry, doll but please … don’t sing to the lambs.”
Bless his heart.