We don’t hear the ‘This is a test, and only a test’ words as much as we used to on TV and radio. But, this coming Wednesday there will be a national test of IPAWS, the nationwide emergency alert system.

We have four tomato plants growing in the greenhouse. They have been flowering for a few days, and since there are no bees in the greenhouse the flowers have to be pollinated by hand.

Each morning we take a small paintbrush and gently brush inside each flower, move to the next flower, and so on to pollinate the plants.

Success! This morning we have our first baby tomato starting to grow!

Greta has been slowing growing over the past few weeks. She’s now about two inches long and looks more like a Halloween decoration each day. The moth she caught was completely consumed within 24 hours.

The tomatoes are just about gone. We haven’t had significant rain for almost 3 weeks with temperatures in the 90ºs during the day, and not cooling off much at night. Another couple days and we will pull up the rest of the tomatoes and try to get a fall garden started.

The county extension agent says it remains too hot for a good germination of broccoli, lettuce, and cauliflower unless one uses a row cover to keep off the sun. Another website said lettuce might germinate if planted in the evening, then ‘watered’ with a cover of ice over the top. We’ll try and get some things started in pots in the greenhouse and then transplant into the garden in early September.