First Dahlia of the Year. 7.1.2021

Last winter I dug up most of the dahlias. I stored them in a box of peat moss in the garage. I moisten the peat moss two or three times during the winter. They all survived and grew very nicely.

Yet Another Forsythia Cutting Rooted. 6.30.2021

Another of the big forsythia cuttings rooted nicely in water. That is #4. Today I potted it in potting soil and placed it in a very protected location without direct sun. It will be there for a week. This makes four nicely rooted, good size healthy looking Forsythia starts.

Here it is, potted. The small one is a potting soil rooted group of Forsythia cuttings. The water rooted one is much bigger and healthier looking, probably a year ahead in size, and was actually less effort.

There is one remaining cutting in water. It has a small root growing now. It should be ready to pot up in a few weeks. Then my window sill will no longer be cluttered with Forsythia cuttings.

First Zucchinis. 6.30.2021

Actually these are the second and third zucchinis. The first was two days ago. This is Burpee hybrid, "Sure Thing" which might be parthenocarpic (not require pollination to produce squashes). I pollinate it anyway. The heat didn't seem to hurt it.

These are very, very delicious sliced into french fries, sprinkled with garlic powder, pepper, and seasoned salt and air fried for 10 min at 375F. Very very good. The heirloom Fordham Zucchini and Golden Summer Squash are about a week behind. I hand pollinated those as well.

My Own Daylily Hybrids. 6.30.2021

I created these daylily hybrids a number of years ago, by pollinating my favorite varieties with other some other favorite varieties. Some had names and some did not. One was an almost brown no-name, richly colored. Some others were Strawberry Shortcake, Chicago Apache, and Lemon Ice (I think). I collected the seeds and grew plants from those. Now most are planted around in my garden. Here are some of the flowers. The heat wave fried the flowers from that day, but today's flowers mostly look very nice.

More Heatwave. 6.29.2021

During the past few days, it got even hotter. Yesterday was not as bad. The max was 115 for 2 days in a row, in the shade. The deck was hotter. I think at least half of the apples are sunburnt, maybe more. Those will not be usable. The first of the blackberries are destroyed. Some of the young growth on apples is dead but I think they will recover. Lots of other damage.