August Gardening Journal: Surviving

Different places certainly have different circumstances, with different weather and temperatures. Different gardens, different problems.  As someone who gardens in different places, I've felt the impact of the different weather conditions acutely. This is especially true in my new garden, in my current rented house. What really surprised me was that it hadn't rained at all for two months! Meanwhile, in my old area, it actually rained frequently, as my relatives had told me when I spoke to them. Well, it does take some adapting. The heat, the extremely dry weather. I hadn't anticipated anything. That led to many failures this August. Failure is a lesson learned! I'm trying to learn the conditions around my new garden, especially about pests that attack it.  Because of the dry season, I didn't plant many vegetables in August. After a bountiful harvest the previous month, this month I let many of the plantings in my garden rest. While I learn many new things about survival.  --- --- --- The dry season can easily cause plant stress. Because plants are stressed, pests are more sensitive and can easily attack the plant's defenses. As a result, the plants are susceptible to disease.   My long bean plants are mostly attacked by leaf-boring insects. I'm considering an organic pesticide for them. Perhaps you have some input regarding organic pesticides. --- --- ---   Then, my biggest failure. All the tomatoes I planted in my new garden. BIG FAILURE! Because of the dry season, and my organic system, the tomato plants are easily stressed. As a result, they are susceptible to diseases carried by aphids. I once saw on YouTube by a gardener that using shade netting really helps tomatoes avoid stress and survive pest attacks. I've been thinking about that.   Look at the results, out of all the plants, only two have produced fruit. Cute fruit. --- --- ---  Moving on to some of my lettuce plants, which I hadn't removed since last month. These lettuces are now over two months old. These lettuce plants are cute, like pine trees. I'll be waiting for their seeds to grow into seedlings. --- ---  Then, there are the shallot plants I grew from bulbs. They're now a month old. They look great. --- ---  Meanwhile, I also have a wild plant I've been waiting for! I named this spinach king spinach because it's larger than most spinach. And the taste of this king spinach is delicious!  King spinach has appeared in the planter bag I'm resting in! These wild spinach plants look great. 😊 Well, I'm also going to start sowing new plants. I hope it rains some, even if it's not heavy. But at least I should choose a type of plant that won't be affected much by the heat.  --- --- --- >Best Regards, Anggrek Lestari ---