Praying to the Bee Gods

Temps are up and down, all over the place in Southern California lately. It's no wonder that anything remotely ready to fruit is confused beyond help. The soil hasn't gotten warm enough, and my tomato and melon plants kept flowering, with nothing more to show.  I started wondering if I should resort to hand pollination, though that is a method of last resort. Of course, the bee shortage alone is a frightening prospect of things to come.

So, while I was praying to the "bee goddesses" for the last couple weeks, adding some zinnia, marigolds, and any flower that helps attract pollinators,  I was finally given a heavenly sign just the other day.....when a bee stung the bottom of my foot. There it was, hanging, with its stinger right under the arch of my right foot- the same foot that just a day before survived 2 deep lacerations from a falling ceramic hanging pot (but that's another story).  So, I had to laugh, since this ambassador of sorts had come with a clear message: "We are definitely hanging out this summer!". 

So, I waited another week.  Nothing.  But then,  lo and behold, to my delight, a sugar baby watermelon measuring just 1 centimeter appeared, blossoming from its female flower.  What a sight to see!   I looked over to my tomato plant, same thing there, camouflaged by green foliage, almost invisible to the blind eye :)

Sugar baby watermelon barely 1 cm in size.



An old trellis and a tomato cage I repurposed to encourage vines to grow upwards.