Getting in the rest of the garden: angelica, cucumbers, painted daisies, pyrethrum, valerian

I spent much of today getting in most of the rest of the garden. We’re supposed to get a high of 88F/31C  This morning it was only 68F/20C, but the sun quickly became intense. What ever happened to the indifferent sun of my youth? Nowadays it feels like it is penetrating to bone. I still have to go out and shift pots out of the sun for the next few days, as they are forecasting four days of above 90F/32C. I hate this kind of heat, which is not very usual here, but it does happen a few times a summer.  This time, though, it will be four days in a row at least, which is very stressful for plants, especially when they’ve just gotten in the ground and when it has been so dry, with no significant rain since May. So everything is going to get heavily watered each morning. To that end I put down the rest of the soaker hoses. There is only one more place in the way-back where I might put the last one when I get the weeds cleared out back there. My plan is to spend the next few mornings doing hot work, like mowing and hoeing. Potting up I can do in the hot afternoon.

I’ve gotten some surprises. A pot I thought was growing weeds actually has some very nice blood-drop emlets (blood-teensy-drop is more like it) mixed with some poppies of an unknown variety. The flowers are very cheerful. I also found one blood-drop emlet seedling had bloomed with a lovely pale-colored flower with good-sized blood drops. Striking! I really like these plants.

I was very pleased with the huskiness of the vervain that I grew from the seed I sell. They germinated with no preparation of any kind, despite info I have gleaned from various places that they might need a period of warmth followed by cold or straight cold stratification. But they too are mixed with some other plant–looks like poppies. I have them all over this year, but nowhere near as much as the black nightshade, which appears to be taking over the world. The other plants I got in the ground were the Artener variety of valerian, some painted daisies (Chrysanthemum carinatum), self-heal (Prunella vulgaris), the last of the angelicas (Angelica archangelica), marshmallow (Althaea officinalis), and a couple of pyrethrum daisies.

Talk about blood meal

One plant I have grown before with little success is Splash of Cream Nicandra physalodes. I have been wanting to collect seed from this plant for a long time, since it is not available wholesale. This is my third time trying it, and this time is the charm. The plants I have growing out front are doing very well, but the real monster is in the back and is all green. That one is growing next to the daturas. It gets much more water there and that area has been a bean bed in past years, so there is plenty of natural nitrogen as well. It’s too bad that the fruits are not considered edible. The flowers are nice but last only a day and then begin forming the Chinese-lantern-like pods. They actually kind of remind me of the pods in The Thing From Another World (IMO, one of the best SF movies of all time).

The daturas are happy as clams. I had forgotten that I had planted two toloaches (D. innoxia). No flowers on those yet, but the others are blooming. I went out there this evening and it was quite nice to see the white flowers glowing in the darkness.

I also harvested all the columbine seeds, pulled up the peas, which are spent, and planted a number of different cucumbers in their place against the patio trellis. I still have a lot more stuff that I need to get into pots, but that can, thankfully, be done in the shade of the patio. And I have two strips to finish up front with retilling and then broadcast seedings of Coreopsis tinctoria and some zinnias. The garden is almost completely done!