Back from vacation

We've been away for five days and its like we have a whole new
garden.  You sort of expent to come back to an untended garden
and find it half dead, especially with this heat, but it looks
like those stingy tomato plants have yielded as many as 10 new fruits,
and the pumpkin which seemed unable to produce female flowers
that didn't shrivel up, now has two strong females ready to
be pollinated.  It gets you thinking a bit superstitiously, as if the
plants were playing a trick on the gardener all those days as he
hovered over them looking for any sign of production.

So to ponder the conditions that finally caused things to jump to life.
Temps were high 80s/low 90s and sunny for the entire week.  Basil
and tomatoes love this but the flip side is obviously the plants cant go
too long in those conditions without water, as attested to by large
swatches grass starting to go dormant.   Seeing the forecast for this
heat wave the day before heading out, I made it a priority to hook
up the sprinklers to a timer so the garden could get sprayed twice a
day.  I also had some drip irrigation coming from the rain barrel, but
with the leak in the barrel it looked as if that supply would run out in
a day or less.  I also threw some mulch down to help retain what
moisture was in the soil, and the plants must have gotten a healthy
enough sip each day.  Perhaps I was over-watering before and it was
delaying fruit set.

Also, its likely the psychology of the novice gardener was a strong
factor, in not allowing for the fact that nature takes its own time.
Ok, so some plants wait for July to get busy--there's still plenty of
summer left.