Triage

June blooms with typical profusion... sort of. The poppies are rather scarce this year. Previous years' photos show the "flower" beds along the house rife with poppies. I scattered plenty of seed in late winter. But it was dry. And kept on being dry. Still is dry. And no portent for it being wet anytime soon.

Tomorrow night's forecast holds a 50 percent hope for thunderstorms and rain. It could happen. But it's going to take more than one storm to break the drought.

So I'm pulling the plug on the broccoli. More accurately, I'm pulling the hose. The soaker hose I've been using to keep the broccoli hydrated will get pulled tomorrow and placed somewhere else. At some point you've got to ask yourself -- Is it worth the effort to keep the broccoli (or whatever) going?

At this point I've got to say that the broccoli isn't earning its keep. While I'm thrilled with each head of flower buds I take off the broccoli plants, it's not enough to be worth the water to keep it going. So the broccoli will be the first casualty of the drought... anyway, the first intentional casualty.

I made the mistake of putting the eggplants in the garden right before going away for a long weekend. They would survive better in the ground than in the tiny starter pots they were in -- and my husband would have one less thing to water while I was gone. We even got a little rain the first night I was gone, but the heat that followed burned the little plants. I've tried saving them with water and kelp solution. But I think it's time to give up on them... most of them, anyway.

I had planned to transplant a number of things this summer, but that's going to have to wait. Everything I've transplanted so far has been fried by the heat. Maybe it's alive, but I doubt it will be for long. I might go ahead and dig up the thornless blackberries, but I will hold them in pots in a shady spot where I can keep them well watered until fall. I ordered a bareroot Montmorency cherry tree (I couldn't pass up the deal -- $9.99 for the tree and just eight bucks shipping. You can't get a tree for $18 any other time). It's in a large pot of soil waiting for fall. I hope we're seeing wetter weather by then.

Speaking of fall, I'm now wondering just how much of a fall garden to put in. Should I reduce the size because of the lack of rain? Or will it start raining by then? It will soon be time to start the cabbages. I need to decide.

And I'm still waiting for my sweet potato slips to arrive. I'm almost afraid to plant them. Won't they just burn up in the heat? I'll try wetting the planting sites good before sticking them in the ground, cross my fingers and pray for rain. That's all I can do except keep the garden hose going.