Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
Just about O dark thirty we gratefully received about half an inch of
rain in less than an hour. Weather folk keep saying more is coming
but I haven't seen anymore.

It's amazing how much the plants perked up with just that much rain.
Temperatures dropped rapidly from 104F to the mid-nineties, making it
much better here and the AC isn't running as much as it was.

Naturally there aren't many plants left in the gardens. We still have
the sweet chiles and the eggplant plus the two new yellow squash but
all the others are now mowed and in the composter. We need some cool
weather to get out there and add our amendments to the raised beds
and stir them into the whole bed. I'm putting in a goodly amount of
peat moss again in hopes it will help to hold the water for the
plants to use. That and some really good compost is about all that we
need to replenish the beds.
We seeded some earth worms from Territorial back in the spring just as
the soil was warming up. Pulling the lima beans yesterday exposed some
nice sized earth worms who immediately dove back under the planting
medium. Hopefully they will colonize the whole property eventually.

Nothing much going on here but hiding from the high heat levels.

Speaking of amendments I have a suggestion that may or may not help. At the
least it's food for thought.

Background; I'm an invalid with spinal problems and I take morphine several
times a day to ease the pain enough so that I can care for myself (and my
garden - somewhat). A nasty side-effect of morphine is constipation and, for
a few years I had a prescription for psyillium husk powder (Metamucil) to
mix with water and glug down several times a day. It helped but didn't
completely fix the problem - it took a total diet change to do that, making
my own extremely high fibre bread etc.

So I didn't cancell my prescription of psyillium until I was sure I had the
problem sorted. Then I found myself with about a dozen 750g packets of the
stuff. I don't know if you've seen or used it but it absorbs many times its
weight in water. When I was wondering what to do with it all I was reminded
of that water retaining gel that was all the rage here a couple decades
ago - 'add some to potting mix and reduce frequency of watering plants' sort
of stuff.

I hate throwing things away so did some Googling and it seems that it's been
used in trials in India as a soil amendment with great success. (Psyillium
grows in India and of course large parts of the country are arid.) I did a
few of my own experiments too. You don't need a lot - a couple teaspoons to
a bucket of soil is plenty. Mix it in well and it really helps the soil to
retain water for quite long periods. I was amazed how well it worked for me,
experimenting on some 'soil' I had in a raised bed that was too free
draining.

I read that, being organic it will break down over time but apparently no
moreso than peat and you need far less psyillium per square foot than you do
peat and it's *much* cheaper per square foot too. I've read where you've
mentioned how poor your soil is and just thought I'd throw this out there.
It may be worth buying a packet or two from the drug store (get the
unflavoured 'natural' stuff) and doing a trial plot? I still have a few
kilos of it here (did I mention that I hate throwing things away?) but it
would cost too much to make it worth sending to you, it's quite cheap to
buy.

Best,
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)