Garden Weeks #13-14: The Bell Tolls

The last two weeks have been disastrous for our poor garden! First, Phoenix decided to have normal summer weather out of the blue. After gliding along pleasantly in the lower 90's, having our backyard hit 111 degrees was quite a shock for people, dogs and plants alike. I faithfully watered my plants even when it burned my legs to kneel on the planter. Using my hand to balance on the concrete wall so I could reach the marigolds in the back nearly blistered my palm. Shouldn't that have counted for something? Apparently not. We lost nearly all of our onion sprouts and B's re-replanted flowers within a day or two of the scorching heat. Though they valiantly tried to hang on, all three of our cucumber plants wilted more each day until they were nothing but crispy shells of their former glory. It was so sad!

Still, I tried to rally my spirits. The carrots didn't seem to care about the heat at all. (Luckily, my mystery sprouts turned out to be carrots, and some of them are even still alive. For now.) The strawberries still had a few berries ripen, and once again, they put all store-bought berries to shame. But then, the next catastrophe struck. It was an F4 tornado named Peanut. On the hottest day of all, we decided to let the dogs out of their run, thinking they would hang out on the covered patio.

Not Peanut.

She decided to try and dig herself a cool bed right in the middle of my planter. I came out to find my grid askew, half the soil scattered onto the rocks around the planter, and several of my most healthy plants flattened or shredded. I very nearly wept! After all that work, my stupid dog had to dig it up, only to decide it wasn't that comfortable after all and she preferred a shady nook in the dog run.

Grrrr!!!!!!

I did work really hard to try and salvage some of the plants. But the last of our onions and the marigolds were irretrievably lost. Terence and I decided that if we are going to let the dogs out, in the future we need to have one of those chicken wire planter cages to save our little plants from dog-wrought havoc. I did count my blessings though-- Peanut's destructive swath spared all the strawberries and most of the carrots, especially my newbies.

Hah!

The final straw was that apparently the heat has spawned a cricket host in our backyard. Terence went out last night and found them throwing a midnight ball in the planter. This morning, I discovered that almost all of my surviving sprouts had been eaten.

I think the garden is on life support now. Maybe the strawberries and the tomatoes will pull through, but everything else looks like its time is up. Oh, my poor garden!