With our air temperatures threatening to be over 100 the rest of the week, is there anything we can do in the garden, instead of just escaping indoors?  Yes - but be selective both in conserving your own energy and the amount and timing of your watering. 
     My garden faces the northeast, and the sun goes over the hill by about 5pm (4pm during non-daylight-savings months), so that’s when I’m in the garden.  After years of loving to be in the brilliant sun working in the garden for as many hours as I could, I now spend only an hour or two at a time during that indirect-light time of day.  Still sweating, but not having to wear sunglasses, a hat, and long sleeves!
 
Watering
     If you feel you should frequently water your garden in the hopes of relieving it from the heat, give a thought to your soil type – if it doesn’t drain well, the potential is higher for phytophthora, a soil pathogen that thrives in hot, moist soils that don’t drain well.  For more information, see http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74133.html).
     My hillside garden -- based on decomposed granite with 75 years of incorporated manure and compost – doesn’t have this issue, but I’m still concerned about timing my watering according to a combination of my best guesstimate observing the plants and soil, and the readings of my $9 soil-moisture probe from Home Depot.  Before watering each bed or fruit tree, I see what the 9” probe registers – sometimes it’s different a foot or two apart – so then I confidently water where it’s needed and not where it’s not.
     Tomatoes and other large plants in loamy clay soil use about one inch of water in three days of hot dry weather.   Rinse the undersides of leaves with water to discourage spider mites. 
     Some wilting of foliage at the end of a hot, dry day is to be expected, but wilting through to the  following morning indicates the immediate need for a deep watering for the roots and a gentle sprinkling of the foliage. 
     Water and fertilize melons deeply once a week for large, juicy, fleshy fruits.   But, about a week before they will ripen, stop watering so their sugars will concentrate.  This is also true for tree fruits.
     Foliage on your garlic and bulb onions should have begun to dry naturally. If it hasn’t, bend the foliage to the ground to encourage the bulbs to form the dry outer layers that are necessary for long storage, and stop watering.  A month later during harvest, avoid bruising the bulbs as you cure them in single layers on slats or screens in a dry, shady, well-ventilated place.  Make sure the necks of the bulbs are completely dry (crisp and papery) before clipping the foliage or bunching and tying the bulbs. 
     Store the thoroughly dried onions in a shaded, cool, dry, well-ventilated area.  Check them periodically, and eat any that show signs of spoilage.  Thick-necked onion varieties are more vulnerable to spoiling because they dry more slowly and less completely than thin-necked ones,  so  eat these first.  
 
Planting Corn
     When I first began gardening on my own – when we lived in Davis on former tomato-growing soil – I tried growing everything we ate.  What a great adventure, figuring out what each type of plant needed, pushing the timing envelope at both ends, and proudly pronouncing at dinner each evening which items were from our own garden.  I still do this pronouncing, but no longer grow corn because even short-maturing-date varieties just take up too much space in the garden relative to other summer veggies like squash and cucumbers and tomatoes and beans that yield so much more for a much longer harvest time.
     However, if you do grow corn, be sure to make the last seeding sometime soon because later plantings will probably have smut problems (those big, grey and black puffs of fungus in place of kernels) when harvested in September.  On the other hand, you may want to inoculate your corn with the fungus—it’s a delicacy in Southwest and Mexican cuisine called huitlacoche!  
     Removing suckers that form at the base of cornstalks will not increase (and may even decrease) yields.   The extra leaf surface of the suckers increases photosynthesis, which provides more food for the developing ears.  However, remove any ears that form on the suckers, as these will take energy away from the main, full-sized ears.
 
Keep veggies picked
     Keep vegetables picked often, even if you don't plan to use that day's harvest immediately.   Vegetables that aren't harvested soon enough will produce a chemical that inhibits further blossoming.   Check plants at least every other day during the summer.   This is especially true for beans, cucumbers, eggplants, squashes, and tomatoes. 
 
Mulch, Mulch, Mulch
     Keep adding to mulches throughout the summer to conserve water, keep roots cool, and foil weeds.   Remember to water well before applying the mulch,  or you'll insulate dry soil rather than moist  soil.   Pile mulch two to six inches deep under shrubs, trees, vines, flower and vegetable beds.  Let grass clippings dry out a bit before piling them (or just spread them thinly), or they'll clump into a mat that's impervious to later watering. 
     As you reseed beans, cucumbers and squash, incorporate some additional compost into the top 2 inches of the bed, then another inch on top of the seeded area, and water in well.  Seeds will have more nutrition, temperature-moderation and moisture for quicker germination.

   Traveling to other gardens, botanical and private, is great fun in its comparisons and contrasts – what we mutually can grow, what other folks consider special, and the plants we lust after because we’ve found them impossible for us to grow. 

     Such was my recent trip to England, France, and Switzerland.

     Here’re some highlights regarding the Chelsea Flower Show.  Definitely a “bucket list” item for gardeners!
 
Common Successes

Veggies.  Vegetables grown in greenhouses and containers looked lush and plentiful.  I enjoyed answering visitors’ queries they muttered to themselves as they marveled at new plants, especially in-flower and fruiting “California grown” boysenberries.

Herbs.  An intensively-planted display glorified herbs as ornamentals, highlighting their variegated foliage, many shades of green, and blossoms.  A strawberry in everblooming-pink was a special delight, even though it didn’t promise much in the way of edibility. And a lavender bed – literally!

Alliums and Amaryllis.  Statuesque specimens!

Begonias and Fuchsias.  Although most of us have a filtered-light nook where we can ensconce a begonia or two, these gargantuan specimens made me feel almost Lilliputian.

Dye Plants.  Wonderfully ornamental display of plants used for dyes.

Huechera.  So many color variations!

School Gardens.  The color- and lesson-filled school garden display gratifyingly exemplified why teach kids (and adults) where their food comes from, and students enthused about their projects.
 
What We Could Use More Of:  The Low Allergy Garden
     This display and brochure provided a listing of what to avoid planting if allergies are a part of your life. 
     Of course, our “bad” plants are largely different from England’s…..
 
What Englanders Consider Special: Judged Dry-Arroyo Garden, Container Cactus
     Rain-soaked Englanders marveled at the judged dry-arroyo garden that was so exquisitely real that I at first discounted it as nothing special since I live near Pasadena's Arroyo Seco and wandered there as a youngster, taking my first photographs, But then I reconsidered the creation,  remembering that I was in rain-plentiful Merry Olde England.  With these "new" eyes, I became totally impressed that everything had been imported and placed and planted, resulting in a very real Eaton-Canyon lookalike.
     Inside the vendors’ tent, the container cactus display attracted huge crowds and purchases.
 
What I Lusted After:  Meconopsis Poppy 
     For years, I’d seen photos in seed catalogs, and now here the plants were for real!  Astoundingly dark clear brilliant blue!  We’re familiar with the “Iceland” poppy shape, but this blue is beyond transfixing.  I could barely contain myself from touching the blooms to assure myself that they were really in front of me in all their glory.  Wow!
 

     Since my last blog in mid-May, I’ve returned back home to a glorious set of Sungold, Carmelo, and Celebrity tomatoes, but some other wimpy tomato plants, cucumbers that’d begun to set fruit, and bean volunteers that were in full set.
     Hurray for my 4”-thick mulch and heavy watering prior to leaving!  It’s always a concern, when I go away for more than two weeks, what the weather will be and how the plants will fare.  As it turned out, both well and not so well. 
     Here’re some of my thoughts on my garden and other gardeners’ queries that occur every year.
 
Tomatoes
     If your plants are wimpy like the one in the third  photo, even though the soil is moist, the plant is starving.  Fertilize it with a “balanced” fertilizer – that has equal amounts of each N, P, and K – like 5-5-5 – or a “complete” fertilizer with approximately the same numbers of each N, P, and K – like 7-4-5.  Then water it in immediately.  You want to provide all of the nutrients to the plant so hopefully it’ll recouperate sufficiently to provide blossoms and fruit.  And resolve that you’ll incorporate more balanced fertilizer into the soil before your next crop!
     If your plants are brilliant green and bushy but have no blossoms or fruit, they’re too well fed with nitrogen and/or watered – too “happy” to proceed with the business of reproduction.  Let them starve and dry out for a while.  When you do see blossoms, shake the bush to help them set fruit, since they’re self-pollinating.
     Be aware that air temperatures over 85 for more than a week will deter blossoming until temperatures are lower for a good two weeks!  This usually means July, but this coming weekend threatens to be over 100 degrees, so who knows what temperatures will be following that.
     As plentiful as your tomato set has begun, be aware that “determinate” varieties (like Celebrity and Carmelo) will bear all their fruit within a couple of weeks and then die, so plant another set of seedlings now.  It may be tricky finding healthy seedlings that are less than six inches tall, but more mature plants just won’t successfully transplant since our hot weather is almost upon us and they’ll be too stressed to establish themselves and then thrive. In any case, remove blossoms and fruit until the plant is a full two feet tall and obviously doing well – you want the plant’s energies to go into establishing itself for lots of fruit later, rather than a couple of fruit now that will deplete the plant completely.
              
Squash
     If first blossoms fall off, chances are they’re the male ones (with just a straight stem below the blossom).  Female ones (with the tiny squash at the base of the flower) will also appear shortly and probably set just fine.
     As female blossoms appear, sow another set of seeds for new plants that will provide continuous fruit after the first set of plants finish.
 
Cucumbers
     If you didn’t provide trellises when you first planted the seeds, do so now as best you can, so fruits stay off of the soil – dry and away from munching creepy-crawlers.
     As with squash, as blossoms appear, sow another set of seeds to provide continuous fruit after the first set finish.
 
Pea Vines (dried out till they’re crispy)
     Instead of removing spent pea vines completely by pulling them out, I clip them at soil level so their “nitrogen fixer” roots will remain in the soil to decay in place, leaving that nitrogen for later crops. And irrigation water will follow the root pathways down into the soil.
 
Beans
     Since the volunteer beans that escaped my harvesting last year have shown me that I’ve waited too long to sow them this year – since they’re blossoming and already set fruit -- I’ll do so now for an intentional crop.
     I plant beans in the same bed where I’d grown peas overwinter, to continue the succession of providing nitrogen to the soil. 
     Bush beans will bear like “determinate” tomatoes – mostly all at once and then die.  Pole beans will bear over a longer period of time. 
     I prefer planting “stringless” types so I don’t have the nuisance of trying to distinguish them once I’ve harvested them all, either before or after cooking – I do hate “finding” a string to pull out of my teeth once I’ve chewed it!