Flooded

The work area where I set up containers got flooded, so I moved everything to the higher ground by my shop building.  So of course the rain quit and it's been dry ever since.  We don't seem to get those afternoon rains as we did in years past, the climate has changed in some way.  The winds always came from the southeast in the warmer months, now they're predominantly westerly.

But I try to adjust to things.  This morning the air reeked of chemicals that stung my nostrils, so I waited for a breeze before going outside to do my morning gardening.  It was hot of course, due to the late start, but I kept on.  I finished ferrying nearly all of a big heap of potting soil to the shop in the wheelbarrow and turned a compost pile.  By then I felt close to collapse, literally...so time to quit for the day. Lately the heat index has been between 100 and 110 during most of the daylight hours.  I got that from the TV weather report, which is all in Fahrenheit.  In Celsius that would be 38 to 43 degrees.

I would much rather go back to my old schedule of starting work around 0600 hours, but that just gives me asthma attacks now with all this pollution.

I've noticed that the boniato aka Cuban sweet potato are outgrowing all the other sweet potatoes.  That reinforces my view that to do well at subtropical gardening you have to grow subtropical varieties. Seems obvious, doesn't it?  Yet nobody seems to follow this path. Instead they grow cold-adapted varieties in a brief window of cool weather between December and March and tell everyone you can't grow vegetables in "the summer" here.

People are so strange, I'll never understand them.  I keep hoping they'll wake up and realize that there is no "summer" or "winter" at this latitude and wearing woolen jackets with ties is just plain dumb when you live in a subtropical climate.  Oh well, you can't fix stupid, can you?

Personally I like the warm-climate veggies better.  They taste better and they're easier on my digestion.  Last night I used my molokhia with a little vegetable amaranth for soup greens.  It made a great soup, much better than a soup made with cabbage or kale...and much more nutritious as well.

The cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata) are really going crazy out there. The first picking is about due, and I'm anxious to see how this variety, Ologwe, is going to taste.  They had better be good, I'm going to have a lot of them to eat.

I know, I should take more pictures.  This heat discourages me from doing that.  I'm having trouble keeping up with things around here, the grass is knee deep in spots again.  When the heat index is over forty degrees Celsius, it's actually a little dangerous for me to go out in the sun.  I don't deal with heat well anymore.

As the teachers used to say in school when I was a kid..."Little by little all things are done."