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since my parents were both working at the cafe today, i didn't go to belmont until after 3pm. instead i was busy cleaning the house (particularly the bathroom), in preparation for the plumber visit monday. i vacuumed, i scrubbed, i bleached, i disinfected. i also organized a bit of my closet, made use of the 3 clear plastic bins i had.

i didn't get to my parents' place until almost 4pm. i hadn't seen the backyard since monday. overall all the plants seem to be doing well. i noticed a few of the squash vine leaves were drooping, and when i took a closer look, i found two plants that had squash vine borer damage. i quickly mixed a solution of BTk and injected the vines. of the squash vines growing outside of the raised bed, the strand that looked like it all wilted and dying last week seemed to have survived, or parts of it. the stress did cause one of the squash fruits to abort, but that could've happened naturally anyway. one of the vines in RB1 actually managed to produce a 2nd squash and a large hanging one at that. now it's a race against time. with one month remaining of summer (august), will the squash vines have enough energy to make a 2nd or even 3rd squash? and can those squash reach naturally before the cold weather returns in september? the powdery mildew on some of the squash leaves in the western bed are still there, even though i sprayed with neem oil on monday, so i sprayed them again.

bitter melon vines continue to grow, with several dangling fruit. the largest one is 7-8" but it ought to be able to get a bit bigger before we harvest. the vines seem to be in a melon production mode as there seems to be fewer flowers now.

i'm still waiting for the grapes to develop some kind of disease that will rot all the fruits and shrivel all the leaves, but that has yet to happen. here and there i see signs of possible other diseases beside black rot that might be affecting the grapes, but at very low level. i can't remember the last time we had a healthy grape harvest, so we're entering uncharted territories. i would be believe it until we actually get some mature grapes.

i haven't seen the rudbeckias or chinese asters since monday. they continue to blossom. a few more chinese asters have formed, they all look to be deep pink, no purple flowers yet.

i repotted the prayer plants. it's a shame, they did so well growing indoors underneath the grow lights, but as soon as i moved them outside, they started dying fast. they do not like direct sun at all, and the leaves will scorch. but i've managed to grow back all my prayer plants from a few surviving branches, so i'm relatively confident i can do the same thing again.

for dinner my father pan-fried some pork chops on the barbecue grill side burner. he breaded them with potato starch for a crispier texture, but the porkchops themselves were not marinated with strong favors so they were fairly light. definitely crispy though, and at times i could also see the bottom of the skin layer sticking a bit.

i returned home after dinner with a large bag of potting soil, so i can repot my own prayer plants. i didn't have time to do it tonight, i'll do it tomorrow morning.

with ended the month of july with a high, with a solar production of 48.73 kWh. i leaves us with 905 kWh for this month. it's a low for july, where typically we're making 1200-1300 kWh, but keep in mind we set the record for the 2nd rainiest july on record. still, i'm glad we almost made it to the 1000 kWh. the start of july the production was so low, i was afraid we'd only get 400-500 kWh. compared to last year, we're making 387 kWh less electricity. fortunately it hasn't been all that hot despite a few heatwaves (must've been all that rain), so we haven't use the AC too much.

i watched the red sox-rays game, boston lost again, so now they're half a game behind tampa bay in the AL east standings.