Oof. It's tough to do a Nature Diary when I don't leave downtown. Cindy and I got out for a walk in the heat of the afternoon and ran a couple of errands downtown, before looping back along Inner Harbour. We're a full on tourist town these days. The harbour is full of people and boats, and Government Street and Belleville Street is lined up solid with tour busses. The Coho ferry arrived and even more vehicles piled out of the ferry, including two of the largest fifth wheel motor homes I've ever seen. 40 feet long? Is that even possible? Longer than a double decker bus anyway.
So in all of that traffic, our non-human relatives were few and far between. The grass and flowers spelling 'Victoria' are all in full bloom and looking lovely. But everything else was sweltering in the heat and crowds and waiting for the cool bliss of fall. Or maybe that was just me.
So I shall take solace in my balcony garden. I spotted my first tomato! It's on the smaller of my two plants, but the timing of the flowers must have been good. I don't think I'll get many tomatoes this year -- it's either been too hot or too cold when the flowers bloom. But I'll have one at least.
The first peas are filling out nicely in the pods and I see more and more pods every day. We might even have some to eat by the weekend. I cleared out the lettuce bed so have space to plant something else. More lettuce maybe? I'll see what I can find but I won't put out starts until this heat wave breaks.