Gardening in the Tropics

Bloom where you're planted -- a mantra to live by.  Sometimes I wish I'd chosen to plant myself in Maine rather than Alabama.  The heat and humidity have been terribly oppressive the past two weeks.  

114'F is 45.5'C to you Canucks.  Fun, eh?  Now, imagine being out in it all day, every day.  I'm spending a fortune on electrolyte powder to avert migraine headaches.

The trick is to seek the shade.  
An air conditioned office or outside in the sweltering heat?
Gimme the outdoors any day.

I love my "office":

How is it possible to get this dirty before 9 AM, you ask?

I'm gifted!

It's too hot during the day to let the dogs loose to run.

Garrett has become the best passenger of the three.
My new acre of garden continues to improve.  The flowers and vegetables thrive despite the cruel temperatures.

Lotus.

One of over 50 varieties of daylilies.

The rose collection is equally out of control.

Tuberose, the most intensely fragrant flower-- ever.  All gearing towards attracting pollinators for my vegetables.

Time to pick a peck of peppers.

I'm thankful every day that I get to wake up and go to work on the farm.  Leaving my job and my previous farm was a difficult choice to make.  One that I know was the right decision to make when I learned that a 10 foot alligator was killed at my previous place.  The farm where Cole and I would run and swim, yeah, that one.  The video tribute I made of Cole would have been his memorial video if we'd still be living there!  
Check out the newspaper article on the largest alligator taken in Lee county:
http://www.oanow.com/news/auburn/article b87aa7a4-29c0-11e5-95df-c356dc7f73e.html?mode=jqm