Summer Doldrums

I have noticed that many of the blogs I read are being updated less frequently and that a stitching message board to which I subscribe has far fewer daily posts.  I think we are all feeling the effects of the heat waves that are blanketing the US.  

Here in the Northeast we are suffering with high 90s in both temperature and humidity, making for wretched days.  I should really look up the inventor of the air conditioner and sing songs of praise to his/her name.  I remember that my grandmother would set a bowl of ice cubes in front of an oscillating fan to cool a room when I was a child way back in the 1950s.  I once mentioned this to the children in my program and they looked at me as if I had just told them I had sailed on the ark with Noah.  I mean, they clearly knew I was ancient, but WOW, that's really ancient!

The good thing is that my zucchini and patty pan squash plants look they are taking steroids.  The plants are huge and a single leaf is considerably larger than a dinner plate.  The blossoms alone are larger than an 8oz water goblet.   I am looking forward to fresh from the garden squash.  The carrots are taking forever to mature to even the size of baby carrots and the peas were a bit of a disappointment.  I believe I planted them too late and they blossomed in warm weather rather than cool.  I'll be planting some more and hoping for a late September-early October crop.  The herb garden is thriving with plenty of chives, parsley and basil.  And even the miniature Christmas tree that I bought two years ago and repotted as an outdoor plant is doing nicely.  Now if I could just get the weeds to stop growing as quickly as the good stuff.  It's way too hot to be bending and pulling weeds that are growing through the decorative gravel that was supposed to solve that whole issue.  And all this humidity is doing a number on my arthritis, so bending is not really on my to-do list at the moment.