Sam's 2026 Garden: Entry 2

The heat is here, but thankfully so is the rain. Things looked especially crispy for the first few weeks of June; however, we've had a healthy amount of rain, and everything is really turning around.

Flowers

All of my wildflowers died during the heat dome in the middle of June. About half bloomed beforehand, which was a nice consolation, but it's another project to try again next year.

Right now, my sunflowers are doing great. They adored the heat spell and grew almost a foot a week for a month straight. I grew them from directly sown seed and only lost two during the heat, though a bird may have been responsible—they ate all my warm-season seedlings while I was away.

The goldenrod has produced its first flowers this week, and although it's being eaten mercilessly by a gopher (I still can't convince it to move out), it's putting on a great show and will only improve with the coming rain.

Monsoon

It's been a fabulous monsoon season over the past two weeks, with plenty of rain and cooler temperatures to accompany it. We're about a third of the way through the season, and although it started slowly, it's marvellous now; somewhere between 2 and 3 inches of rain has fallen, and the short-term forecast is very positive for more.

I've been bottom-watering my maturing potted plants, including about half a dozen tree saplings. My wheelbarrow is almost the perfect depth for the tall pots, and I can collect enough water from just one roof corner after each storm. This, along with an assortment of buckets, has meant I haven't had to fill a watering can for my supplemental watering, which has been wonderful. All the plants have loved it, especially the oak trees, which have all put out new sets of leaves this week.

Looking Ahead

I'm still experimenting with growing corn. The heat dome arrived while I was away, so I couldn't quite give it enough water. Still, it's doing okay, and I'll be sowing another round soon.

I have a variety of vegetables to plant soon. I'd like to grow most of our Christmas vegetables this year, but we'll see how that goes with the gopher. The vinca is thriving better than ever, the cacti are doing great and are putting out new pads and stems, and all but one tree has handled the storms so far. It's too tall for me to reach where it broke, so I have an arborist coming to help.

Last on my list is to get my late summer and early fall flower seeds planted. The desert soil couldn't be better right now for sowing.