Lettuce has Bolted, Peas are Drying Up, Pansies Dying But All is Not Lost!

I think it hit 38ºC today. It was one of the hottest days I have experienced here in Toronto yet. Some of the plants are hanging in, some not. A few days ago the aphids kicked up again and I had to totally pull up a basket of pansies as they were completely infested. Pansies just can't take this intense heat and couple that with the wind, I can't blame them. The Gerber daisy is a bit burnt as is the orange carnation but it really just happened today under this intense heat. I have confidence they will rebound.

But I can tell you who are the hardy ones. Coleus laughs at all this. The snap dragons, though not putting out new flowers are holding their own. Petunias haven't even noticed the heat. The swiss chard is doing very well as is the growing heirloom lettuce (even though I completely over planted the basket).

I will try to get some shots tomorrow and post them. It was really just too hot to be outside at all. I have been double watering the plants to make sure they don't dry out in this humid heat.

Lettuce Ready to Harvest!

The lettuce basket runneth over!

Isn't that a gorgeous site? I planted this basket with seed mid April and kept it in the south, south-eastern corner of the balcony up on an old chair so it would get more sunlight over the day. It was grown without pesticides or herbicides or petroleum fertilizer. I watered it with regular water and every now and then water left over from steaming organic kale, spinach or swiss chard and two feedings of Better World. Now it's finally ready to harvest some leaves! I decided to go and and judiciously cut the leaves close to the where the leaves come out of the earth, but not too close to injure the plant more than necessary. I wanted to leave the rest of the plant to live and grow more leaves. 

Here are the chosen all washed up (not that they were dirty at all, which is such a great benefit to growing your own food - you know EXACTLY where it comes from, no ecoli!).

Washed and ready to be eaten. Yes!

I added some organic cucumber slices, roasted organic cashews, fresh snipped chives from my balcony and olive oil and salt. It tasted fantastic. There is just nothing that compares to harvesting and eating your own home grown food. However, your local farmer's market is a very close second : )