I've begun harvesting the garlic, a little earlier this year than last year. I've been eating garlic scapes and pea pods. Four of my tomatoes are blooming (Sausage, Opalka, Black Plum, and Roma), but my Saucy Paste seedling succumbed to the heat. :-( I have a couple sunflowers forming, and my squash and melons are coming along. The squash is growing a lot faster than the melons. I think I managed to discourage the flea beetles enough to give them a chance. I've lost a couple broccoli plants to the heat as well.

Alice was saying on another thread that I plan everything out . . . some truth to that, I do have a schedule.

There are problems with getting old - some of them are simply memories. Take this current gasoline problem, I was working at a gas station while going to college during the 1973 oil embargo. I say working but I was the manager and in charge of the work schedule. As a way to help the other employees make some money as we cut station hours and cut station hours, I scheduled myself practically out of a job. No gas . . . no income . . . .

Okay, I can't rely on a schedule faced with vissicitudes of life - I've been there before! When I finally pulled my schedule out, probably in May, I realized I was just about 10 days late for everything. Since we were having a "Winter that would never end," that appeared to be smart gardening on my part. Still, for some reason 50% my carrots didn't come up.

I didn't buy pelleted seed this year since the cornstarch gel was so successful in 2007. Then, I decided that since the ground was so cool and wet with continuing cool and cloudy weather, the naked seed should be fine. Didn't work well, we'll see if replanting helped when their requisite 14 to 21 days have passed for germination but I'm not altogether hopeful.

Why oh why didn't I mix up a batch of the gel or order pellets?!? Now I've taken a patch of radishes out and there's some baby carrot seed . . . It didn't work to use the gel so late in June, 2007 but maaaybe this year (since we are 10 days late on everything. ;o)

Elsewhere, despite spraying 3 times, the flea beetles have so damaged the broccoli that they are going to just bud out while only 12 inches tall - darn!! If it isn't the rabbits, it's the flea beetles. Maybe we can genetically-modify rabbits to eat flea beetles . . . that would be something NEW!

digitS'

Here is a link that might be useful: Carrots in Dry Soil

"Maybe we can genetically-modify rabbits to eat flea beetles" Why not, I have a kitten that is eating the grasshoppers. THEIR BACK!!!! Here I hoped I was not going to get so many of them this year. I guess I will have to let the chickens out Wednesday while I am home and see what happens. They have been grounded for eating my daylilies, but maybe the hoppers will be more interesting.

Billie

My green beans and sugar snap peas seem to be growing well, even though something was snacking on the beans when they first came up, I think it's the hoppers, and something else. The tomato looks good. There are peppers on 2 of my 3 plants, although I'm starting to think I should have plucked the blossoms off until the plants got a little bigger. I have short tiny plants with bell peppers starting on them. They probably are at least enjoying the little windbreak I put up for them. I attached a strip of sheer curtain material to sticks around the plants b/c they were being flattened by the wind.
My yellow beans don't seem to be coming up as well as the green ones did, and only about half my corn came up. I replanted the corn the other day. Today I replanted 1/2 of the first planting of carrots. The 2nd square sprouted much better than the first, and I'm still waiting on the 3rd.
The cukes, zuchinni and watermelon are getting their 2nd set of leaves finally.

Billie, I have a cat who used to catch the huge grasshoppers we had in west Texas. Also caught large moths, a snake, and lots of worms after a rain. All of which she seemed to manage to bring into the house somehow... Now (she's about 12) she mostly catches the sunshine on the porch. She does stalk the rabbits though, I saw her belly crawling across the driveway yesterday trying to sneak up on one. The rabbits are just too quick for the fat little cat.
I actually saw the neighborhood fox tonight. I thought I might have seen one back in the winter when we first moved into our house. I've heard it several times at night - after a little internet search that confirmed that it was a fox making that screaming noise I was hearing. Scared the heck out of me tonight, since the cats were outside. I'm not sure if the fox will go after the cats, but I don't want to find out the hard way. They won't like it, but I think their evening outings are coming to an end. They haven't been allowed out after dark for the last few years (when we moved to Alaska), but the old man (he's 14) still tries, and sometimes succeeds in, sneaking out.

I can hardly believe that July is almost here.

I spent hours yesterday weeding the onions. The sets have mostly come and gone - as scallions but a few will be kept for Winter storage. I'm talking about weeding the onions grown from seed.

Some of the early Asian-types have been pulled and have outpaced the weeds. The later ones were at risk of being smothered by purslane. Then there are the "sweets." I'm trying "Utah" this year along with the Walla Walla's.

How close are these things coming to being shutdown by the long days?!?

I got some bunches of Sweets from Texas again so will have some but am I failing again with the seedlings?!? It is frustrating! I used to overwinter Walla Walla's but the cold is usually severe enuf that 2 years out of 3 they just run to seed in the Spring.

One thing sure can't substitute for another . . . In an effort to "supercharge" the onions, I put organic fertilizer on them last week . . . sooooo . . . yesterday, I'm pulling weeds covered with fertilizer - - yuck!!

When are you expecting your onions to "bulb-up" and am I going to only have cocktail onions again this year? After all that work, it is enuf to drive me to drink!!

digitS' after industrial soaping, stained & cracked

My peony is blooming! This is the second year for the three peonies that survived, and the Bowl of Beauty's only bud has flowered. Very beautiful. I wish I could have gotten a picture, but there's something wrong with the camera. I charge the batteries, but the camera shuts off after several seconds as if the batteries are dead. :-(

I cut almost all of the garlic scapes. I'm harvesting garlic two weeks earlier this year than last, but when they're brown and lying on the dirt, it's about all I can do. I don't know how people grow big garlic bulbs. I just can't seem to.

I've a number of tomato flowers, but no tomatoes yet.

My cauliflower succumbed to the heat. As did my Saucy Paste tomato plant. My zucchini is going great guns, though. The hill attacked by flea beetles is lagging behind, but I think they just might make it.

Monday was overcast for a good bit of the afternoon, so I took the opportunity to transplant the 'Trionfo Violetto' Pole Beans into the only available spot in the garden. When the sun came out later in the day, they started to sulk a bit, so I covered them with an upside down milk crate to give them a little shade, which seemed to cheer them up. I also potted up the last tomato plant, a 'Mini Bush Yellow Cherry' that was wintersown, as well as the last container of parsley sprouts.

There are flower buds on some of the tomato plants in the garden, and the peas are starting to unfurl there pods. How will I know when they are ready?

I was alarmed to find my first flea beetles today on the outskirts of the yard, in the alyssum. Man those little !@#$%^& are fast! Of course, after reading about their devastation from Lilacs of May and others here on this forum, I ran to the garage to see what I had in my arsenal. Unfortunately, none of the stuff on hand lists flea beetles on the label, so now I'm panicking that they will make it to the veggie garden before I'm able to fend them off! Ackkkkkk!!!

Meanwhile, while I've been holding it off in the veggie patch, the bindweed has been gaining ground in the lawn.

Summer is definitely here.
Bonnie

As a newbie gardener, I'm a little sad at the moment.

I've been watching my leeks and onions die off (too much watering, plus planted too deeply) and this week my lettuce and carrot seedlings keeled over in the 90+ degree heat and dry wind. (planted too late)

Does anyone know of a hardy mid-summer plant that I could put in to the blank spaces in the garden to cheer me up? Or should I just sit tight until things cool down in a few weeks?

Laura, maybe some cucumbers or bush beans?

Laura, maybe some scallope squash? It's a fast growing good producing summer squash. doesn't take much room.

My Radishes have suffered the same fate, so I'm gonna plant some more Scallope squash. You can actually find early white bush at Wal-mart.

Highalttransplant -- I have a few cucumbers planted, but I'll look into bush beans.

Meteor5 -- Scallop squash sounds interesting. I was thinking of doing zucchini, but this sounds a bit more manageable. ;)

As to our local Walmart: ours was pretty picked over and pathetic looking the other day, but who knows?

Thanks all,

L

Bonnie, I thought you said something about seeing large versus small pictures . . . Flea beetles are really tiny . . . ?

I mentioned flea beetles on the veggie forum, once. It was funny how some folks completely discount them as a threat. Meteor, did you know that the adults dine on your radish leaves and the larvae eat the roots of host plants? Vile, little critters . . . well, maybe not vile.

Laura, you've gotten good advice on "filling in" at this time of year. Bush beans are always my hot weather fail-safe. Cukes are quicker than most things and with plenty of water will produce lots before cold weather. And, something I learned is that I can plant zucchini seeds late. (That should be true with other Summer squash.)

If the seed goes in the ground by the 4th of July, the plants will have time to develop squash before the 1st frost. I've gotta get some "stuck in" around the broccoli which should be gone soon.

digitS'

Digit, the only reason I noticed those flea beetles, is because they are a little irridescent in the sunlight. I saw a glimmer and had to just about put my face in the dirt to see them. Then when I tried to grab one, they started popping around. They appeared harmless, except for the fact that the Alyssum that they were crawling on looked like someone took a miniaturized shotgun to it.

Anywho, the garden is really coming along now, flowers on some of the tomatoes, peas are forming pods, and the broccoli is getting HUGE, even though there are no heads on it yet. I even have buds on a few of the pepper plants.

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My Earthbox experiment was a failure though. The plants were growing at an awesome rate; however, I used the organic fertilizer kit, and the flies found it. I wouldn't have even known it, but a cutworm took down one of the two tomato plants in the Earthbox, so when I went to get a closer look, I found that the entire box was filled with maggots. Can you say disgusting? Even though I was told on the Tomato forum that they are harmless, I'm not running a fly farm. My son and I carried the box out into the field and dumped it out, including the remaining tomato plant, which I regret not trying to salvage. I was just way too grossed out to deal with it at the time though. I will try to use the box again next year, but I think I'll skip the organic fertilizer next time around.

Bonnie

coming soon to a sandwich near me...

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:-)

Vile is an appropriate term for flea beetles. They do more damage to my garden than almost anything else. Squirrels and grasshoppers are a close second and third.

I've seen some traffic-cone orange grasshoppers this summer. That's a new one.

Is it too late to plant squash and melon seeds? I was told it was in another forum. One hill of melon seeds never came up, and I wanted to reseed before it was too late. But it's just a waste of seed if the frost is going to get the melons before I do.

I put out the last of my tomatoes today. I planted my Giant Tree tomato (free seed packet from Totally Tomatoes) out by the fence. My plant room is almost empty, just a couple of herbs to plant, and my one experimental yellow pepper (another free seed packet), which grew very slowly.

I have two Roma and one Opalka tomatoes forming. I've hilled the potatoes a couple times, and I see that a couple potato bags need more soil dumped into them. A couple sunflower plants have buds, but I thought the plants would grow tall, like several feet, and the biggest is about 18 inches.

I've been harvesting sour cherries all week. Now I have to figure out what to do with them. Most cookbooks are no help. "Open a can of pie filling...."

Lilacs of May,
I emailed you a recipe for cherry pie, that doesn't include opening a can :)
Let me know if you didn't get it.
Amy

Hello all,
I'm new here and love reading about your plants. It looks like most of you in the Rocky Mountain forum are in Colorado, which makes sense. I am in sort of lower/north Idaho and border zones 5 and 6. We have had the same weather you seem to be talking about...long, snowy winter, (snowed in June!) then wet, rainy, and now HOT. Anyone else here located in Idaho? I have my first 3) little tomatoes set on a new one called Tommy Toes! I am pretty excited to see those. Others are blooming and looking OK, but no sets yet. Zukes and yellow crooknecks are just getting buds on them now and my cukes are still tiny.

Glad to be here,

Mary

Welcome to our little corner of Gardenweb Mary. Look for a thread here called "who's here 2008", it list most of us, and where we are. I'm pretty sure someone is from Idaho.

Back to the topic of the thread, I got my first cuke flower today! I'm gonna be buried in cukes, I have around a dozen plants.

Greenbean, yes, I did. Thank you. I'll have to try it out now.

I was harvesting more cherries, and there was a robin above me in the tree--also harvesting--who just plain refused to leave. I have the same problem with birds as I do with the squirrels. If you want to eat a cherry, eat a cherry. Don't stick your beak into 15 of them and then leave them.

I lost my Giant Tree tomato. :-( I very lovingly planted it in the ground next to the fence yesterday. Hoed the ground, weeded, mixed in some compost and fertilizer, planted the tomato deep, then placed a tomato cage over it. Today I came out to find it lying on the ground, cinched in at the soil line.

Cutworms, I assume. I've seen a couple of them (and hit them with rocks), but I haven't had a problem with them yet. This is the first tomato I put in the ground instead of in a container.

Something really cool I'm seeing in my scallop squash this year...I'm getting way more female flowers in the first round.

{{gwi:1209833}}

There's at least 3 visable females in this new cluster on the goldens.

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A nicely developing green.

Everything in my garden is acting like it's gonna be a banner year for yield, and couldn't have picked a better year.

The only flowers I have gotten on my squash so far are male. I would probably try to save seed from those squash and see if it something you might be able to repeat next year. Glad you are having a good year.

Billie

Mary, are you south of Lewiston?

I'm farther up the panhandle, gardening on the ID/WA border.

Steve's digitS'

I hadn't even thought of that Billie, good call!

Hey, if I can make the fall swap, I might have something I could bring now.

Oops! Looked at the 'o8 list and see that Mary's in the Potlatch area. Wonderful country! Dad has some property on Yellow Dog Road just before it bends and goes into Washington.

Ya go down the road a ways and turn at the big rock - take the middle fork. It'll look like it's just a trace. Don't go left or ya'll need to back out. Then it'd be a right at the yellow dog. If'n the yellow dog is asleep . . .

Mom's family was from Palouse but on the Idaho side. "Town" was in Washington & they lived just up the river a mile and that put 'em in Idaho.

(A hundred years later and as many miles north, I'm still hugging this border. ;o)

digitS'

Ten little tomatoes forming! And my one zucchini hill is getting big and putting out lots of leaves. No flowers yet, though.

I have a couple of ichiban eggplants that are about 2 inches long, flowers on the zuke and yellow squash (though they're too little to really start producing. Tomatoes and peppers I WSd are too small to do anything yet, but the cherry bells I bought have tons of flowers. Sugar baby watermelon are growing along (no flowers or fruit yet)

Digit - those are the best kind of directions to give, they make sure you look around at the scenery instead of just looking for road signs.

Dafy

I started hand-pollinateing the Scallop squash this long weekend (or as the wife calls it "squash sex"). I'm still amazed by how many females I'm getting in the first round. It seems last year I didn't get the first female for a couple of weeks after the first males. And, it isn't just one type (I have 5 types planted from 2 different seed companys). I haven't seen a white yet, but maybe none of them survived (3 types were from a Gurneys assortment). The most interesting so far is one that's light green with largeish yellow spots! I'll have to get a pic when it gets bigger.

Looks like I'll be haveing my first stuffed squash this weekend.

Sadly I did lose my first 2 tomatos to BER (both on the Parks improved Whopper), but the big ones on the celebrity and still good sor far.

And again, thanks to whoever gave Skybird that Principe Borgese that she then gave to me. It has a healthy cluster of 8 that will be ripe soon, and 4 or 5 more clusters forming. And the plant isn't even that big! Cant wait to try them from what I've read about them online.

Wow! I'm long winded today! :-)

Mary, My garden beds in Boise (Meridian) seemed to take a long time to get growing. But a friend in Caldwell, who planted at the same time seemed to get an earlier growth spurt. By now, my peas are producing (finally). I stopped with the radishes, but the carrots are in their third planting. The early corn is nearly ready, and I've harvested potatoes. My tomatoes are no where near ready, but my friend is picking his first ripe ones. My bell peppers are still a long way off.

I just ate some of his squash today. A cantaloupe plant that I started indoors is about to bear its first melon.

I'll be making a greenhouse to get an earlier start next year. We were getting good weather by mid-May, so I should do better next year with some hothouse plant starts.

Fort Collins report:

So far, so good.

Two Fanfare cucumbers are filling out nicely, with more on the way. The Armenian cucumber plants are looking healthy, with loads of blooms and vine tendrils that have already latched onto the trellis I put up today.

About 8 little green Celebrity tomatoes on one plant, and about 15-16+ on the Sweet 100. Champion is a little behind, and I'm concerned about the blossoms in the heat...

Peppers are slow to form, but I finally have proto-jalepenos. *cheer* Bell peppers have been small and one has developed a soft brown spot. Wonder if I need to water them less...?

All three mints have slowed down their growth, probably due to heat. Chamomile flowers are blooming non-stop, however. Basil keeps trying to put out flowers, as well -- but I'm pinching them to keep leafy growth. Chives are not flowering, but seem happy. Cilantro has gone completely to seed.

Carrot seedlings mostly burnt up in the sun, but four made it and are hanging in there. I'm planning a second attempt soon.

Paris Cos lettuce had a late start, but is doing better than expected. Red Sails lettuce bit the dust, as did most of the onions and leeks, which were also planted too late. Ornamental Kale has been amazingly tasty (especially when steamed) but has been infiltrated by cabbage moth caterpillars. I've been keeping these at bay by attracting the local wasp population, and by a daily hand-picking.

No Laramie strawberries yet -- anyone have luck with them fruiting a second time?

L

My first zucchini blossoms (including a couple girls) are about to burst forth. I have over two dozen tomatoes forming, and most of the rest of the plants at least have flowers. My peas are still producing a little bit, although the heat's pretty much gotten them.

Most of the tomatoes are on my Sausage plant, which is in my square foot success kit. It's over three feet tall, and has over a dozen flower clusters on it. I'm looking forward to lots of Sausage sauce this winter.

Some of my potato plants aren't looking good, though. They were only planted two months ago, so it certainly isn't time for them to give up the ghost yet, but they're drooping, and the leaves are turning yellow then drying up. Maybe the heat's getting to them? (upper 90s the last week)

What I thought was a cantaloupe, on closer inspection, is actually a watermelon plant. Moot point, since the bugs have pretty much destroyed it. That means that I have only one watermelon plant, and none of the cantaloupe even germinated (Minnesota Midget). Most of the watermelon didn't germinate, either (Sugar Baby).

All of the garlic has been harvested. Some of the cloves didn't come up at all, and most of those that did developed very small bulbs. But at least I've got a lot of them.

I have five remaining brassica plants. They're hanging in there, but they're not very big, and they're growing very slowly.

Even though I don't care for peppers, I got a free packet of seeds for yellow bell peppers. I planted one, it germinated, and it's now out in the yard in a container. I forgot to harden it off, so the sun burned off some of the lower leaves. It's still in the game, though. (Now what the heck am I going to do with the peppers if I get any?)

I've decided that next year I'll work in some compost next to the fence and create a line of sunflowers, hollyhocks, and Giant Tree tomato plants. Big, tall plants, in other words. Maybe the perv across the fence will lose interest if all he can look at are tomato vines.

I fertilized the lilacs, trying to encourage them to grow, but I guess they have their own sense of time. They all look happy, though, if still short.

I planted lettuce and carrots as well, but they were pretty much a bust. I'm going to try planting some more in the garlic beds, although I'm worried about the heat affecting them.

I have plenty of buzzers -- honeybees, bumblebees, and yellow jackets -- and I even saw a butterfly today making free with my sweet pea blossoms.

Well, everything has finally been planted out here. Four tiny canteloupe plants went in front of the peas, which have just about stopped producing. Even though the peas took much longer than expected, and didn't produce quite as much as I thought they would, they were so delicious that they are definitely on next year's planting list. I'm wondering though if there is enough time left to actually get any canteloupes this year. Need to adjust my timing on those I think.

The last two cucumber plants also got planted in front of the peas, and the last of the basil sprouts have been planted out. It's funny, last year I ended up with five, sickly looking basil plants, and this year I probably have 70. There's at least 30 in the veggie garden, a few in the flower bed, some in pots on the porch, and a couple of pots in the kitchen windowsill. I was running out of places to plant them. I guess I got carried away with the sowing this year, but I was determined to have enough for some homemade pesto.

I am really hesistant to say that my carrots are coming along great, since so many here seem to have trouble with them. I'm afraid I'll jinx myself!

Onions are getting big, and starting to lean on everything around them, so it shouldn't be too long, I guess.

As I mentioned on another thread, I ripped the broccoli out, because it refused to make heads.

Over half of the lettuce has bolted, and I need to sow a fall crop indoors, when I get a free moment.

Tomatoes are growing like weeds, with babies on most plants, but no ripe ones yet though. A couple of babies were eaten by grasshoppers, and I accidently cut one off today, trying to cut a grasshopper in half with my snippers : (

I also saw my first flea beetle in the veggie garden today. He was alone, and there's no evidence of damage yet, but I need to arm myself for that battle I guess.

All in all, this year's garden has been fairly productive so far, and definitely educational.

Bonnie

How can you tell the female from the male flowers on squash? I have some zukes growing, but they were a little late, so no flowers yet...

Stevation, pan up to my squash pics in this thread. Those are some early females. You can tell prior to blooming because there is a tiny squash at the base of the flower, sorta looks like a hat. After blooming the inside of the males look like a single orangeish Q-tip, and the females a more complex looking arraingment.

Easier just to look for the tiny squash at the base of the flower.

Hope that makes something resembleing sense.

Mine is growing splendidly, I think...I have baby tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers just about ready to eat!

Here's the first veggie bed:

A baby bell pepper:

And the second veggie bed:

Almost all the peppers have "baby peppers" on them, except one that has had a long cayenne pepper on it since I took it out of the greenhouse in March. That pepper is *finally* turning red - hooray! And I had actual, bonefide honeybees pollinating in the garden last weekend...thrilling, since I haven't seen a honeybee in ages around here.

We also have roses and lilies - I took this picture this morning:

And here's a picture of the "faux river" border I took a couple weeks ago:

Needless to say, I'm having a garden party on the 26th...I just disbudded all the roses in hopes of a big flush of blooms by then, and maybe I'll have some ripe fruit to serve as well (I'll at least have fresh basil). :-)

Jamie -- very, very cool! Thanks for sharing. You obviously take great care of your garden and invest a lot of time (I remember the greenhouse photos earlier this year). Good work -- it's beautiful.

I'll be interested to hear your success with the rose disbudding. Someday, we hope our daughters will have wedding receptions in our backyard by our rose hedge and arbor, and if you can force the timing of a good flush of blooms like that, I'll want to know that for future reference! (It will be years from now, but for the oldest, it could happen maybe five years from now).

Some gardeners mentioned honeybees. In my corner of the planet, they have been mostly missing. The apple trees usually are humming when they're in bloom. Not this year. I saw just a couple of bees at work in my apple trees.

Do you all notice the bees missing in action?

Container and raised bed garden. Doing great!
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and from container
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Nice harvest, livenow. Is that an 8 Ball?

My zucchini are blooming. I have 19 Sausage tomatoes forming, 29 tomatoes in all. My potato plants are beginning to die back, so I think I'm getting close to harvest time. I've harvested all of my garlic.

My broccoli and Brussels sprouts aren't doing much, though. They're alive and green, but they're not very big, and they're growing very slowly. I wanted some Brussels sprouts to go with my garlic mashed potatoes and homemade pasta sauce.

Hi Lilacs of May It is a Ronde De Nice a french heirloom. I also planted yellow butterstick, white and yellow pattypan and a coezelle. The butterstick was very buttery and great. Ive heard that you can let the Ronde De Nice grow a little bigger and stuff but I harvest them small and they are great! I harvested broccoli about 2 weeks ago and was delicious. Have three more that are looking good. I used fish emulsion, they liked it I guess. Have 7 tomato plants, tomatillos, basil, parsley, lemon cukes and pickling cukes, japanese eggplant, snowy white eggplant, rosa bianca eggplant. White cherry tomatoes were absolutely great, sweet almost. will post pics later!

Meteor - I knew there was something I forgot I wanted to plant. I love those little pattypan squash.

Checking in -

Cherry bells are going nuts, one plant has 10 peppers of various size, the other 5 have anywhere from 1-6 peppers. The other peppers I started from seed haven't started flowering yet.

There are 4 Ichiban eggplants growing. There were 6, but I cut one off that had it's end eaten (not sure which bug wanted a bite) and another I thought was ripe, but is still a little green at the end.

Waiting on 3 "fantastic" tomatoes to redden. Of the tomatoes I started from seed the Wisconsin 55 and Double Rich are the winners for starting flowers, Thessaloniki is close behind. The paste tomatoes and Bloody Butcher are lagging behind.

The yellow squash has a ton of flowers formed and 2 males open. The zucchini has flowers forming, but they're not as big as the yellow.

Lemon cuke is twice the size of the Early Russian and has flowers starting to form.

The Sugar Baby watermelon is stretching out vines and I've seen a couple of blossoms open. Are these like squash and have male and female flowers or does every flower have the possibility of forming a fruit? (never grown melons before)

I had no luck with either the bush beans or Scarlet Runners, they got eaten by the bugs. Is it too late to try replanting either of these?

I took pics, but haven't had time to get them off the camera and cropped down to size.

Jen

I'm enjoying this thread, even though it seems to take a while to load, since it's nice to be able to compare my garden's progress with other folks in this area.

Jen, I don't know if it's too late or not, but I just planted some bush beans today. So I'll get back to you on that when we have our first frost, LOL.

I sowed some lettuce indoors on Thursday, and it was already up yesterday. My plan is to put it in the garden when I pull out the carrots and onions.

There are a couple female flowers on my bush cukes now. I planted several different kinds, and so far, the strongest, fastest grower is Spacemaster bush cukes. Diva, lived up to her name, and croaked when I transplanted her in the garden. I direct sowed another, even though it's probably too late. I refuse to accept defeat!

Tons of flowers on the peppers, but so far, only one tiny Alma Paprika. Â

Baby tomatoes on six out of nine different varieties, with Cherokee Purple being the furthest along, and Black Cherry being the tallest.

Happy harvesting
Bonnie

It IS taking a long time to load, Bonnie. I was able to fold half a line of clothes waiting . . . Does starting a harvest thread make sense?

I had lettuce in my lunch sandwich today but we are definitely down to the last of it. We'll see if the most recent transplants can overcome the dog days of Summer. Three beds of peas have been ripped out so far.

I harvested the shallots from sets this week! A little early but it was either get them out of the ground or allow the weeds in the bed to run to seed! What is with the onion family? They offer ZERO resistance to weeds and trying to pull a weed beside an onion at almost any stage of growth means taking a 50/50 chance of ripping the onion out of the ground along with the weed!

Fortunately, I've still got the shallots-from-seed left in the bed, uh well, 50% of them. I think they'll be able to grow to be sets that can survive a Winter. I'd be pleased to get another variety going.

All onions are doing well where more attentive weeding prevailed. Altho' I am a little worried about my leeks. I blamed the American Flag variety for being so scrawny last year and went back to Lancelot . . . they seem rather scrawny, themselves. It looks as tho' sweet onions from seed will continue "bulbing-up" sufficiently not to embarrass me in o8. The sweets from plants are HUGE! The little leeks will get more fish emulsion tomorrow and maybe they can catch up.

The 1st zucchini came off a vine nearly 10 days ago. Not much sign of anything else in the cucurbit patch with the exception of small Fastbreak cantaloupes forming! Oh, and it looks like I'll have a good sized pun'kin for Halloween.

The earliest of the sweet corn has started to tassel. And hey, I've got the 1st Dusky eggplant for tomorrow's lunch!!

Somehow, it seems like we should be later in the season . . . Maybe that's because we went from a cool Spring, to very pleasant warm weather, to some Summer HEAT, to today. Whereas it was 91° mid-afternoon yesterday, it was 63° with a smattering of rain showers at the same time today. Makes it seem like Autumn.

digitS'

Unfortunately, several of my Sausage tomatoes developed BER so I snipped them off and fed them to the compost bin. I lost a beautifully developing zucchini, too.

Some of my potato plants have died, and others aren't looking too good. I think it may not be a bad thing. It may just be that they're coming up to harvest time.

The heat is affecting everything. The only two tomato plants that aren't wilting are the Viva Italia and Sunmaster, both in white kitty litter pails. Most of the tomato plants are suffering from blossom drop. My Orange Banana tomato started wilting a week ago and hasn't stopped yet. I fear for the poor thing.

Does the heat affect honeybees? I see tons of yellow jackets and wasps around but very few honeybees. And I haven't seen my bumblers for a while.

The heat has been getting to me, too. I've been suffering from heat exhaustion. My furnace, air conditioner, and central fan all went out last March, and I don't have the money to fix them. My home office rarely gets below 90 degrees even late at night. Probably isn't good for the computer, either.

It's too bad that I can't spread this cool air around a little. The sun has been "up" for 4 hours now and it is 53°. There was a brief 5 or 10 minutes when it actually broke thru the fog and cloud cover and the temperature must have jumped 5°! This can't last . . .

Potato foliage dies back as the skin on the tubers toughen. That's better for handling but I don't think it makes too much difference with regards to anything else. And, I whacked back the foliage on some of early potatoes and it didn't seem to toughen anything over the course of a few days.

I've used the technique on late-season bakers with good results. Of course, it won't save the spuds from a misguided harvester plunging a spading fork directly thru the tuber . . . At any rate, with the loss of photosynthesis, tuber growth is at an end.

digitS'

My neighbor down the street has a tree that's in bloom right now. I was walking home from the store and noticed dozens of honeybees visiting the blossoms, just in a small area. So there are plenty in the neighborhood. And I guess someone visited my zucchini because the one zuke I have growing looks good and has even grown in the last couple of days. It's about 5" by 4" now.

More tomatoes with BER, though. Sigh.

At least it rained today. Only for about 15 minutes, but it's something.

I harvested my first zucchini ever today! It's an 8 Ball, and it was getting big, so I thought I'd better harvest it. It's not round, though. It looks like a large, green egg. I see other girl flower buds on the plants, so hopefully I'll get more.

My other zucchini hill also has flower buds. My watermelon plant is small, but I notice that it's formed flower buds, too. Very promising.

I've got over 30 tomatoes developing on my plants, and one by one, my potato plants are keeling over and giving up the ghost, so the next week or two I'll probably go out there and dig up some supper.

Peas and spinach are pretty much spent. My sweet peas are developing tons of seed pods, though.

Picked a first-of-the-season lemon cucumber! The vines are looking very nice.

Surprising how good it tasted as I rolled off into the setting sun in a cloud of road dust and smoke from a fire out in the Columbia Basin.

Brought an armload of anise hyssop home to dry. I'm afraid that the plants I thought were Korean mints are anise hyssop also - must have lost all the Korean mint over the Winter. I made one cup of tea, layed out a piece of cheese and 3 cookies. I think this is dinner . . .

digitS'

Digit, my lemon cuke that I transplanted a couple of weeks ago, finally gave up today, so I stuck another seed in the ground. Yeah, I know the package says 65 DTM, and we'll be lucky to have 60 left before the first frost, but maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky. If not, I'll be sure to direct sow this one earlier next year.

The canteloupes that I transplanted at the same time, seem to be finally settling in, and a couple are starting to put on a little new growth, but I may be a little too late on those as well.

The tomatoes are growing amazingly fast though. It seems like they grew 6 inches since yesterday!

The peppers are starting to get going now too. There are quite a few Alma Paprikas, about marble sized now, and my first couple Fooled You jalapenos finally set. The bell types, such as King of the North, and Revolution, are flowering, but still no fruit on them yet.

Even with all of the progress in the veggie garden, I think the thing I am getting the most use out of is the herb garden. Just tonight, I used some fresh parsley in the wild rice, some chives in the mustard sauce for the pork tenderloin, and basil in the steamed broccoli and carrots.

... cookies and tea, that sounds more like a bedtime snack to me!

Bonnie

I picked my first tomato (bloody butcher) yesterday, and a couple more are turning red. The black cherry should be coming in soon. The plants are all healthy, 5' tall and still setting fruit in spite of the hot weather. Unfortunately, the cuor di bue both got ripped out a couple weeks ago because of what I feared was curly top virus but more likely was herbicide damage from my putting roundup on some nearby aspen suckers (I used the 'glove of death' technique to minimize the risk, but I have learned my lesson).

The melons (Prescott Fond Blanc, Early Hanover, Noir de Carmes) are all flowering and setting fruit, so it'll be a footrace before the nights cool in September.

The poblano peppers are doing well, but the tepin peppers I started from seed are just now taking off, so I may transplant them inside in the fall to see what I can do with them.

I've sowed some beets, carrots and bok choi in the last week for a fall crop, and the beets and carrots are already popping. Should be good if the hot weather doesn't get them.

Finally, the fruit trees are doing great - apples, pears, one quince and five plums. Some are growing like weeds, others like snails, but all appear healthy and happy, with no major bug or disease problems.

I made some jelly from the redcurrants the prior owner put in a corner of the yard. Pretty tasty, but not as good as the plum jam I made last fall. I'm looking forward to picking some wild damson plums in a month or two - we have hundreds of them along the trails in the open space near our house. Some farmer sure liked plums a while back!

All in all, a very good summer. Keep your fingers crossed for the melons!

Ian

I harvested 25 Purple Majesty potatoes out of my raised bed last night and this morning. Sounds like a lot, but unfortunately most of them were only marble sized. This is my third year planting potatoes, and I still can't figure out how to get them to grow to be normal sized. They're certified seed potatoes, in a raised bed with good soil, in full sun, and I've been feeding them regularly.

Tonight I'll have a zucchini boat and purple potatoes.

I also found out that I have a new kind of spider in my back yard, Phippidus Johnsoni, if I remember it right. A red-backed jumping spider. It's about 1/2 inch long, black with a cherry red back. I've never seen it before, and this morning I saw two, in separate parts of my yard.

And it's venomous. Inflicts a bite comparable to a wasp or bee sting.

Just what I need, more poisonous insects in my back yard! As if the yellow jackets weren't enough.

And the squirrels lob immature peaches at me.