We've had a number of hot days in a row, so I tried the spinach mustard (Komatsuna Old Tokyo mustard) again to see if it tasted hot and whether it was fibrous. The texture was significantly firmer, but it was not fibrous (you could still chew it up), nor was it hot! I'm excited about that. Definitely a great green.

It's very visibly different from all the other mustards. The leaves are dark green (like spinach) and kind of shiny.

Carnivores actually grow better in very poor, somewhat acidic soil. That’s their natural habitat whether bog or beach. Too much soil fertility will kill them. Another thing to consider is water. They need a fairly pure version so municipal water isn’t a good idea. Flytraps and pitcher plants are usually grown using the tray method, which means standing water that’s added to as required. Some use RO water. My water filter removes enough impurities so I’m good there. They grow very slowly. The standard fertilizer is Maxsea, foliar spray.

I like my philodendrons fine. They’re easy to take care of, the standard heart shaped leaf vining plant. They don’t seem to mind if I forget about them for awhile as long as it’s not too long.

Emma Pink died, I think yesterday. It was probably Verticillium that stunted and wilted it. A number of the Honey Rock melons have been dying, too, but some of them look promising.

Okay, the garden is looking good, today. It should be cool enough tomorrow to direct-seed more cucurbits, tonight. I'm thinking I'll do more of the same kind of watermelon, as well as some Hannah's Choice F2 cantaloupes.

The plants that had been stunted on the southeastern backyard garden plot seem to have broken out of being stunted. The Roma VF that had been planted where Carbon wilted from Verticillium has especially made strides recently. I think the hot weather is doing them good.

Some of the corn is faltering after the transplant, but most of it looks pretty good. The extra Brandywine Pinks I put where Caspian Pink died are still looking good, as is the Cal Ace VF suspect in the new location. The extra Brandywine Pink transplants by the corn and the one where the first cantaloupe died aren't looking as great, but they're still alive.

The East Meets West prickly pear has begun flowering (yellow, as advertised).

I'm very grateful for (and really excited about) this!

This is the aforementioned spinach mustard. Those other plants are wonderberries.

There are zillions of little insects crawling around the black plastic in the southwestern backyard garden plot. I think they're probably thrips, but they're small, so it's hard to tell. That's a lot of thrips. Wow. They must be wondering what happened to all the wonderberries that were there last year. The tomato plants there don't show any overt signs that can assuredly be attributed to thrips, though.

Someone gave us some lettuce to transplant. We've never transplanted lettuce before, but I like it that way. It's been transplanted in these pots for 1 to 2 weeks, maybe.

We've never tried lettuce in containers before, either. I have a favorable impression of that, so far.

Buttercrunch: Not sure what kinds:

One of the Brandywine Pink cross F1s set a fruit! It's the first tomato to set fruit, this year. I'm guessing the father is Galapagos Island. It's the plant in the backyard southeast plot.

Galapagos Island itself is probably taking longer this year because it had so many plants around it that have only recently been thinned (none of them had a clear lead over all the others), and because the weather has been cooler (and it seems to like it hot). Plus, it's not a volunteer this year. There were plenty of volunteers, but I pulled them all up because I'm only allowed to grow one cherry.

Well, this is highly unexpected. The spinach mustard (and some, but not all of the wonderberries in the same spot as it) are wilting from Verticillium. Some of the other Spinach mustards are showing Verticillium's chlorosis. Ugh. I watered it a lot (but I did not pre-fertilize it, and that would have helped, I think). Alas. It's not the full on discoloration wilt (just the wilt severely during the day wilt). So, I can probably still eat it. Anyway, I better harvest it all and thin out those wilting wonderberries in favor of the non-wilting ones. I mostly just wanted to grow wonderberries there after it got very hot, so it's not a big loss for this year (and helps me select for resistance). However, it does mean I'll probably be a lot more careful about planting the spinach mustard next year! If I do it at all, I'll probably plant it at a different time of year.

The hot mustards are all fine.

I harvested all the spinach mustard. Here it is. These are both the same bowl.
I didn't pull up all the plants. So, I get to see if they'll grow back wilted or not.

That's a decent harvest for not even thinning the plants!

I only partly thinned the wonderberries, because the sun went down some and they stopped wilting so much. So, I wasn't sure which ones I should thin then.

I got two gallon freezer bags stuffed very full with those spinach mustard greens (cut up). The leaves have stalks that look kind of like celery.

At least you got something! I had Verticillium on potatoes one year and black stem spot another. While I got a few tubers, the harvest wasn't nearly what healthy plants would've produced! But at least we got something! And Verticillium is a very difficult pathogen to get rid of

@JayneR13

Yeah, I don't know that Verticillium is going anywhere unless there's an influx of microbes that eat it. I'm hoping to select for more resistance.

Our cantaloupes are dying from Verticillium, except the one that isn't where the potatoes were. I just noticed it was Verticillium, yesterday.

Some of our hot mustard plants are wilting now, too. Green Wave isn't wilting, though; it's the hottest one. I didn't think mustard would wilt at all.

@JayneR13
If you want to grow potatoes, I highly recommend a resistant variety. Non-resistant potatoes totally ramped up our Verticillium problem. I don't know if home gardeners can get all of these, though. But you should know that some resistant varieties are still known to increase the pathogen in the soil. Here are some resistant potatoes I've read about:

Resistant to very resistant:
• Ranger Russet
• Dakota Trailblazer

No wilt (but may harbor the pathogen in the soil):
• Umatilla Russet (moderate resistance)
• Bannock Russet (very resistant)
• Alturas (very resistant)
• Premier Russet (moderate resistance)

Other resistant varieties:
• LW025

@Shule I've been experimenting with disease-resistant tomatoes and cucumbers this year in fact, with mixed results. The Diva cucumbers didn't make it at all. The tomatoes are too soon to tell yet, but at least they made it into the field. Defiant, Mountain Merit and Mountain Rouge are (allegedly) resistant to a number of tomato problems, including Verticillium. All I can say is we'll see. The weather has been cool and rainy so far, perfect for disease development!