Redemption and optimism

Having gone nuclear, and cleared all the beetle infested plants, our garden was looking rather bare. And I felt the need for redemption.

So we planted watermelon seedlings at the weekend. Anywhere else this would surely be the height of optimism. According to the tag they take 97 days to produce fruit. Which puts our projected harvest somewhere in late November. Hmmm. There is a reason that watermelon salad isn't a traditional Thanksgiving dish, isn't there?

As well as watermelon, we planted tomatoes, peppers and edamame seedlings. Lettuce, basil and coriander seeds too. We also planted a few herbs, which seems less wildly hopeful. And I took the opportunity for a spring clean (albeit in August) to clear out the overgrown and increasingly bitter chard, and move a few salvaged plants to better spots.

The garden looks neat, tidy and just like a garden should at the start of the growing season.

Too bad Fall is officially around the corner.

On the basis that this is the city of year round sun, I'm hoping for the best and ignoring the fact that the rainy season usually commences in November. We can handle the odd shower, but we need temperatures to stay in the 20s (or 70s) for this renegade off-season harvest to work.

Keep your fingers crossed, please, for an extended Californian summer. If this goes well, I'm going to shoot for a double-crop of summer fruits next year. Hell, I might even plant a mango tree.