May Lotito

This flash drought in the Ozarks is really bad. My SIL is commenting how we are hotter and drier than Arizona. Year to date rainfall total might not be low but check out the soil moisture map. Lots of my indigo leaves have mite damage with mottled look and a quick test showed that they lost the pigments. I am watering them so they can grow back healthy leaves. Figs are ripening quickly but they stay on the small side. It's nice you have free well water going. That's a life saver.

It's been very hot and dry in my area and I water the several large sunflower "trees" daily as many wildlife are depending on them. I notice the bees are out before dark (still at 90F) to visit the flowers and just go to sleep on site. They get active for a few hours in the morning and hide out during the day. I enjoy my night walk in the garden but have to take detours here and there because of the spider webs. I would try to find small grasshoppers and throw them at the web. Wow! The spiders are very fast to catch the prey. Sometimes the grasshopper is too big and the spider has to battle quite a bit, wrapping and hoisting the package to the center of the web to enjoy.  And of course, the goldfinches love the sunflower seeds and empty every head before the seeds are even mature.

Somehow my Chinese chestnut bloomed this year and set fruits without another tree. Last year I did give it a little bit of minerals to fix deficiencies found in other part of the garden, including about 0.5 gram of molybdenum. Now we have a summer flash drought and the tree is doing fine. As you see in the background the eastern redbuds are yellowing and dropping leaves.

The stalks start to dry and the heavy ear just droop down. The husks also puff out a bit. I guess that makes corn kernels to dry faster to avoid spoilage naturally. The whole week it will be 100F and no rain, everything would finish up except a few giant Inca maize. I gave the ears a sneak peek, there seemed to be little cross pollination.

My

Thom Bri wrote:Double-tip ears.

This is a rare case of fasciation .  

I got 7 squashes maturing in this 4x6 area. Sweet potato vines are being trained to go up the trellis and fall veggie seedlings are sprouting under the cover. It's been scorchingly hot with less than 1" of rain in August and the heat wave will continue for another 2 weeks. Planting multiple vines and harvesting 1 fruit each works well when I have a short favorable growing window.

Is it earlier than usual to see acorns dropping now? Maybe these are damaged ones and the good ones are still up in the trees? Greg showed a picture of acorn flour here and the nuts definitely looked dark brown. permies.com/t/154413/SALE-high-quality-cold-leached#1209578
He also mentioned some details I guess would be critical for making quality flour: separate acorns by species, cold leaching, change water seven times, etc.

The tall one is horseweed.
https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/horseweed.html

I agree with the ID of bush clover Sericea lespedeza and its parasitic dodder. Lespedeza has very high tannin so some animals will eat it to get rid parasites in the guts. Otherwise, they don't like the bitterness from tannin, especially older plants. Younger leaves early in the season are more palatable to herbivores. It was introduced to control erosion and provide fodder early last century and has became invasive in many places.

I see lots of cloudless sulfur butterflies (Phoebis sennae) in the garden. They have a special affection to the red canna. It's interesting that the mature caterpillar is yellow and the chrysalis is yellow as well.