Melons and Changes

Hi again... It's been too long.

I guess I've been too busy with work and chores to get around to the blog, so my apologies.
It's summer. Boy is it ever summer! I don't know how many triple digit days we've had, but here's the monthly weather for Austin:

http://www.weather.com/weather/monthly/78745

yikes!

One of the casualties of the hot weather has been my water consumption, which was waaaaaay out of hand last month. It jumped to almost double our highest previous monthly consumption, due mostly to my heavy handed watering habits. We came in at about 7000 gallons. So, since receiving my bill, I have switched to a more draconian watering schedule- one deep watering per week. We'll see if it works. The plants certainly don't like it, the squash and melons were looking so poorly that I decided to just rip them all out and plant a drought tolerant cover crop of millet, sunflowers and amaranth this morning in preparation for the fall garden. I'm not sure if I believe it, but we are supposed to be planting the fall crops beginning in about 6-8 weeks. I considered planting some more melons, because I love melons, but ultimately, I think it's best to keep the front beds open so that I can grow my fall crops in the sandier soil, which they like.

That means this picture of a melon is the last melon of the season!


It was a good melon though.... (i already ate it). FYI the vareity is 'Charentais', which is a French heirloom, which supposedly tastes better than all other varieties. Well, it was better than the ones I grew last year, but inferior to the melons at the grocery store, so I really wasn't that impressed. If anyone has any tips for growing especially flavorful melons, let me know.

In other news, I have been expanding my cheese repertoire to include mozzarella and queso fresco. The mozzarella has been a little bland, I think owing to the 'quick' recipe I've been using, which does not include a starter culture. Next time I make it, I'll do the other recipe. So far the queso fresco seems to be going OK, today is my first attempt and it's still draining whey, so I've not tried it yet. Sorry, no pics. The batteries are dead...


Annnnd here's a picture of Miles in a T-shirt and boxer shorts.