Heat Wave

We are in the middle of what is likely to be a month long heat wave. Normally June temps are in the high 70's low 80's. Its been high 90's and over 100. Today it was 106. Its causing havoc in my garden. Normally plants have the chance to establish their root systems in June so that they can grow and thrive in July and August. We usually don't get to the high 90s until end of July and we have very few days over 100. My plants haven't grown in the last 2 weeks at all. My lawn is dying because when we bought sod last year they sold us shade grass rather than the drought tolerant grass we wanted. We didn't realize this until it was too late so we put up a shade cloth today in hopes of saving our lawn. The heat has made my grumpy. Since we have an swamp cooler for most of the house, it only cools the house 20 degrees from the outside temp, which means my house has been in the mid 80's. Thank god we do have a small AC unit in the bedroom so we have been spending a lot of time in there. Blech. Miserable. I hate this state.

To Build or Buy?

This question seems to apply to the two big developments I have coming in 2016. We have already decided the likely answer for one of the situations but we are still doing research in the other.

The property: We have almost 100% decided to buy a property with an existing house. It does make the property slightly more expensive but a property with a house usually comes with well and septic already in place and the interest rates for traditional mortgages are far less than the interest rates for lot loans. We probably wont be able to pay cash for our place, property in the area we want is pretty pricey, so we have to think about interest rates etc. We still may end up building in the long run, but in the mean time we will have a place to live and a monthly payment that is more affordable. My dream house is the 2 bedroom Whidbey (557 sq ft) by Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, but we'd turn the second bedroom in the back into a pimped out mudroom complete with a dog washing station and add a back entrance. Most people have a dream kitchen or a dream living room but I have a dream mudroom.

The Beehive: We are also mulling over the question over in relation to the beehive. I bought a book of beehive plans. We decided to go with the most common design, the Langstroth, simply because we live in Utah, a desert, where honey production can be decreased due to that fact so I don't want my bees to have to build new honey comb each year. Apparently it takes 8 pounds of honey to make one pound of wax. Maybe when we get to Oregon we can keep Warre Hives too but while we live in Utah, we will go with the Langstroth. That being said, apparently accessories for the Langstroth hives can add up, so we are pricing hives and lumber to decide if we should build our hive or buy.

Summer Garden Update

The summer garden went in a couple of weeks ago, since I never got around to finding community garden space I am just working with my tiny back yard and my garden at work. At work I planted kale and rainbow chard. The kale is doing well but my chard keeps getting sunburned, so I planted a row of green beans to shade them. Hopefully the chard will come back this fall and my kale will enjoy the extra shade during the hot summer as well. I also planted some tomatoes and eggplant at work. In the back yard I planted some Queenland Blue pumpkins, zucchini, more tomatoes and eggplant, potatoes, and some cucumbers. I made some room when we ripped up the hops (poison to dogs) so I have more space to work with than before. I already lost one tomato to a dog attack, however I am hoping it comes back. Gardening with dogs is a P.I.T.A., my dog eats my organic fertilizer and won't stay out of the garden beds. This wasn't a problem before when my back yard was planted in hops and raspberries since the plants are/were established, sturdy, and thorny in the case of the raspberries. Now she's having a blast running in the newly exposed beds and digging for kitty kandy so we are going to have to do something to protect the poor vegetables.

Speaking of raspberries and thorns, I am trialing a new thorn-less raspberry variety, Canby. I hope it works out because it is nearly impossible to weed the raspberries once they get to a certain point due to the thorns. My arms get shredded. If this bush seems to do as well as my current variety I am going to slowly fill the raspberries in with it. My current plans are aging a bit so they need an infusion of fresh blood anyways. That's about all for the garden for now.