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July 1, and I am able to see better by the light of day. I'm pleased with last night's work.

I'm noticing more and more flowers. Lots of them on each plant.

I bought a new garden tool a couple of days ago. It's called the Garden Hound. It's a tool with a T shaped handle at the top and a claw on the bottom. It works great for breaking up clods of dirt and loosening up the soil. I spent a lot of time using it and tilled the whole pepper patch. The ground seems to hold the moisture very well. The plants are looking great.

Some of the plants are now as tall as the bamboo sticks. They are growing like crazy!

The tiny star shaped things at the center of each leaf group are the beginning of more flowers I think.
Today is the 4th of July.

July 6. I went out to inspect the peppers today, and was shocked to discover a pepper! This was the first one I've seen, and I was surprised how large it was already. I guess it was easy to miss under all the green leaves.

Then I went looking for more.

I find them in many other places.

The sunflowers we've planted have become the new wind break. The old one was ripped apart from the wind. These work better and look pretty. We've got our first sunflower too.

July 12. Small white butterflies are visiting the garden. They are very fast moving and hard to take pictures of. The white blur you see below is on of those butterflies.

The peppers keep blooming. The small white flowers are pretty against the green.

Many green peppers on the lower branches. Production is ramping up! We still have hot weather and lots of sunshine.

I've noticed that as the flowers give way to peppers, more flowers burst into bloom. Each plant seems to be staggering the rate at which they are produced. I find this very interesting. I would have guessed that the whole patch would be covered in blossoms by now. But each plant produces just a few--maybe six or eight at a time, then no more for a while until the next group is under way.

I've discovered another use for the bamboo sticks. I've been using them as kind of a measuring stick to gauge the growth of the plants. As you can see, many, if not most of the plants are now as tall or taller than the bamboo. In about 10 days they have nearly doubled in height! Go peppers go!

July 14. Today I decided that the sprinklers were too low and I might not be getting even coverage with the watering. So I took a couple of chunks of wood from our tree that fell in the New Year's wind storm and used them for a platform. I nailed the sprinkler bases to each one. After turning on the water, I saw that it worked as I had expected. Simple yet effective.

July 19. Today I was able to get a better picture of the small white butterfly that keeps flying around the garden. It camaflauges quite well with the flowers.

I've also noticed that some of the peppers are light green, while others are very dark.

July 20. Tallest plant, now a full 3 feet tall!

See the end of July, Go to Page 4