At the end of August I took some cuttings of our overgrown Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ and rooted them out to replace the original plants. After five weeks, I severely cut back the old plants, and planted the newly rooted stems. I read that artemisia does not do well being aggressively cut back, so the slips are backup. As backup to my backup (I really like the look of this artemisia), I started five more slips. These I will let root out in my plastic test tubes inside through the winter. I do replace the water daily to reduce the chance of mold or algae growing in the tubes with the roots.

The plan to to keep the artemisia trimmed down next summer to a level below the hibiscus in the back row. I may again be overrun though. The plants I cut back are happily growing new branches. What, you mean internet information is suspect?!?

I’ve been checking on our largest aspire melon daily. The Neem, Castille soap, and peppermint spray seemed to work to keep the caterpillars off, and the spots on the rind that were nibbled healed up. The color turned yellow and then I was checking to see if it slipped from the vine. I put a secondary cage made of welded wire fence up around the melon to keep the dog off it. Then I checked the bottom and found the gaping hole. Hm. I wasn’t very careful to spray the bottom, as it was pressed up against the mesh sling.

I detached the melon from the vine and rinsed it well in the sink (rather easy to rinse with a hole that goes all the way in). I cut it open and did not find any critters, so I cleaned it up and cut away the rind and questionable bits. It tastes nice, not as nice as the smaller melon that fully ripened on the vine, but better than a store-bought cantaloupe. So there we go. There are still two more melons developing, so we’ll see who gets to those first.