Watering the Garden

I was up before seven this morning to turn the sprinkler on in my vegetable garden.  The temperature hit 100 yesterday, a record for that date.  That kind of heat sucks the moisture out of the plants faster than they can replace it.  We had a good rain a week ago, but you wouldn't know it by the looks of the vegetation.

The city allows you to water twice a week, in the morning until ten, then at night starting at 7pm.  Of course, the system is really designed for people with sprinkler systems, not people like me who have to drag hoses around.  I go out every 45 minutes to move my sprinkler so that I can have the back yard watered by ten.  This evening I will do the same in front.  I do not have a big yard

With the advent of high temperatures, I will be watering not only my vegetable garden and flower beds, but areas of lawn ( bare of grass) so that the trees will get plenty of water.  I lost a big elm in front this spring and a native pecan.  The pecan was a surprise because 20 years ago, I tried to get rid of that tree and it just came  back.  Now, I did nothing and it's dead.  I wonder what is going on under the ground because the elm and pecan were in the same area.  Is something toxic buried there? Since my house is 97 years old, probably not.

I watered a section of the backyard where I will sow my okra seed.  This will be the last vegetable I will put in.  I adore okra.  I especially like it raw, right off the stalk.  I may trying putting in some beans with the okra.  The soil where I will put the okra needs to be turned and compost and fertilizer worked in , but the pain in my back has become a living, pulsing torment, so I will delay until the weekend.

Photo by  bucklava

The tomatoes are coming in.  The Bonito Oro has wonderful, golf ball size fruit.  The cherry tomatoes continue to perform well.  I bought bacon and lettuce yesterday, so today we can have BLT's from the enormous tomatoes produced by Solar Set.  I am not sure I save any money with the garden, but the taste of fresh produce can brighten your whole day.

Demographics, They are a changing.

America's Tomorrow from PolicyLink on Vimeo.

The Southern Strategy

I have become more and more bemused by the posts by Republicans and/or conservatives on Facebook.  Not one acknowledges the fact that Ronald Reagan came to power on the basis of the Southern Strategy.  Not one will acknowledge that the Republican party is still the party of bigotry and voter suppression.

Reagan capitalized on the fact that a Democratic President championed civil rights and voting rights giving African-Americans the right to vote in the South.  Reagan began his 1980 campaign in Neshoba County,  Mississippi in a place only famous for the killing of three civil rights activists.  Reagan spoke of "states rights", code words for oppression of blacks.  I know, I was raised in a state that had once been part of the Confederacy.  My high school was considered integrated because we had one black student. You had to pay to vote: the poll tax.  The sole purpose of the poll tax was to keep African-Americans from voting. Republicans want to bring the poll tax back in the guise of voter identification laws. The GOP's aim is broader now, not just minorities, but the elderly and the disabled.

Bob Herbert wrote: "To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency."

Reagan set the Republican party on its path of bigotry that it maintains to this day.

Draw a Line in the Sand

For if we hit the debt ceiling, the government will be forced to stop paying roughly a third of its bills, because that’s the share of spending currently financed by borrowing. So will it stop sending out Social Security checks? Will it stop paying doctors and hospitals that treat Medicare patients? Will it stop paying the contractors supplying fuel and munitions to our military? Or will it stop paying interest on the debt?     Paul Krugman

I have supported President Obama despite my belief that he values compromise above principal.  I voted for him in 2008.  Whether I vote for him again depends on whether he takes a stand against the
Republican goats( goats as in Matthew 25:31-46).

If President Obama does not stand up to Republicans over the debt ceiling and allows massive spending cuts, I will not vote for him because we might as well have a Republican in the White House.  Obama on the campaign trail talked a good show.  (I admit I preferred Hillary because I thought she was tougher and Obama had a habit of being condescending to women..)  I have been disappointed in his capitulation while in the White House to Republican grandstanding.

President Obama is wealthy and will not suffer from whatever he does.  I, on the other hand, am on a limited, fixed income, and because of a childhood illness (pre-existing condition) cannot get insurance.  The federal and state health risk pools are a farce:one would take more than 1/2 my income and one would take all of it to cover my monthly insurance premium.  The reality is that the health care reform has done absolutely nothing to help me.  My hope was to survive to 65, but the Republicans plan to destroy Medicare and, at  this point, I fear President Obama will aid and abet them.

 Draw a line in the sand, Mr.President.

Tomatoes Begin to Ripen

Cherry tomatoes by bucklava

I had planned to write at least two blogs on the garden between the last garden post and now.  Some minor crises, one hard fall, and an interesting interlude on Facebook when my blog giving my view that Christianity is not the only way to God and heaven was posted by a Facebook friend.  Falls are always dangerous for me for three reasons: (1) my bones die (cause unknown, but injury can't help)  (2) I have an artificial hip (doctor's instructions: don't fall) and (3) I have no health insurance (pre-existing condition).  In this case, I fell outdoors on nice, hard dirt. still, not concrete, while carrying plants to the backyard.  I avoided landing on the artificial hip side and I did not have any permanent injury.  I ripped a nice hole in my thumb on something and my good knee (the other has the knee cap out of place, but it works, much to my orthopedist's dismay) was skinned and badly bruise but functions with only minor complaints mostly when I bend it.  Oh, one of my elderly cats is sick and I am administering nebulizer treatments two to three times a day..   Good excuses, but the reality is I just didn't feel like blogging about the garden.

The garden is progressing but not as I had planned.  I planted sweet pepper and eggplant seed in two beds and not one seed sprouted.  I have never had this happen.  By the time I realized that the only thing going to sprout were weeds, it was too late to reseed.  I bought susbstitute plants at my local nursery( the plants I was carrying went I fell).  They had no eggplant.  I have planted two sweet peppers, two squash plants,  two kinds of basil and two kinds of parsley.    I have purple sage, lavender and mint in my side garden, in the ground among pots of cereus, pencil plant, and sanseveria.  My lavender always dies: I think from too much water.  The side garden drains well and is dry.  I put the mint near the bird bath on the ground so it will get more water.

My garden May 1

My tomatoes are growing well and all have now set fruit.  This is the last year I grow Celebrity. because it does not perform well for me. Celebrity was the last to set fruit.  We are already sampling the Sungold tomatoes and the Sweet 100's.  Ojo Bonito is loaded with green tomatoes.  The plants have been attacked by small, black worms that eat the leaves.  I have instituted a daily search and destroy ( actually, look and squish).  So far, I am winning.  The Brandywine was the first tomato attacked by these nefarious critters.


My main concern now is the ferocity of our spring storms.  I lost my car windshield to hail in 2008.  We had our first storm last week; this was also our first rain since I put in my tomatoes in early March.  Hail warnings were abundant, but the storm that came through my area had no hail and lots of rain., over two inches.  That really was a miracle.  This part of Texas is in a severe drought which continues.  One line of storms is not enough., but at least I will not need to water for a while.

Sungold tomatoes by tvol

I purchased my okra seed yesterday.   I need to prepare a bed for it this week.  Okra loves the heat.  I want to track down a nursery that has some eggplant plants.  I will sow some radish seed on the edges of the four beds I have now.   If all goes well, I will plant some red sunflowers at the bottom edge of the garden.

The garden is my escape from reality.  Whether I harvest much or not, I will reap peace and renewal.