I'm just starting to have to put water in the bed, after not having to do so for at least 3 weeks. Maybe more.

Tomatoes: 'Brandy Boy' has one ready to start turning color, 'Amish Paste' as well. All the others, including containerized, have at least one fruit set. Starting to like the heat, but not too much heat as today's.

Tomatillos: growing well, no fruit set yet.

Peppers: all sweets and hots are well, all except habañeros have at least fls and 'Northstar' has one fruit turning color.

Beans: bushes are so-so, poles not too good and disappointing in the ground two years in a row, containerized poles are climbing, well, no fruit set

Peas: bushes and climbers all bearing fairly well, slowing in heat.

Lettuces: not bolting yet (!)

Spinach: pulled yesterday, spanakopita for dinner Friday! Yum!

Okra: just starting to really pop out of the ground, ~ 3 weeks maybe a bit more to fruit set, had to re-plant one var. as poor germination, those are going. Too cool for a long time, methinks.

Cukes: flowering and fruit set maybe 1-2 weeks (?)

Squash: Waltham BN climbing ~6"/day, 'Sweet zuke' and '(forgot bush sq name)' starting to pop out of containers.

Carrots: doing very well and thinning for 6-y.o. to munch babies daily.

Eggplant: 'Ping Tung' starting to really go, will have to raise hoops soon (covered for flea beetles)

Melon: starting to show tendrils.

Onions: aaaaaah! We can't eat them all! Heeeeeeellllp!

Shallot: only ~70% popping from sets. May do seeds next year.

Arugula: starting to bolt.

Herbs: all thinned and starting to enjoy the heat.

Garlic: juuuuust starting harvest 'Siberian' Hawwwwt and yummers.

Dan

My cool seasons have, David, a row cover at an angle over them (not fully covered). This, I think, prevents the butterflies and most flying critters from seeing them (as well as keeping temps down~4-7ºF). No flying critters or offspring of flying critters on my lettuces or kales or any cool seasons. Top of row cover fabric is secured against a trellis, and bottom is lifted by and secured to a hoop ~ 18" high at center. All I've had is earwigs and crickets.

Dan

So, lets see...Two varieties of toms flowering, but no fruit yet. Cucumbers flowering like crazy, but also no fruit. Jalapenos flowering, not much though. Green peppers looking dismal, but at least its starting to grow better now that things have heated up a little bit. My leaves are plenty chewed, but nothing looks bad enough to really affect the plants as a whole! I'm waiting for the darn marigolds to blossom so they'll keep the bugs away, but no luck.

Tomatoes - Doing great, Beefmaster is over 4' and huge, Husky Cherry Red and Early Girl at 3', and all have tons of green 'maters in all sizes. Early girl is supposed to be 50 DTM which would be by now, but I think I have a couple of weeks to go until they start to ripen. I'm so impatient - can't wait to harvest, and I know I'm going to end up with more than I can eat all at once. Tempted to pull that big beefmaster tomato off and force it to ripen.

Cukes - Really taking off over the past 2 weeks, lots of one inchers on the vines. I put up some triangle cages for them to grow on and they hooked right up to them.

Zukes - The two plants are already huge, too big for my little garden in fact. Both have a couple of one inchers as well.

Jalepeno and Bell Peppers - Growing finally, but just starting to bud.

Carrots - 4", doing well. In hindsight I should have staggered the sowing a bit.

Dill - 3", doing well. Waiting for cukes...

Basil - Using regularly.

Onions - Tops looking not so great now. Haven't used one in a bit, hopefully still growing well underneath.

Cilantro - New plants 1-2", old plant now almost only bolts, even after cutting it back once.

David, a local gardener told me yesterday, that this area used to have a sugar beet farm, and that is why we have the leaf miner problem. Don't know if that's really true or not though ...

My okra is not tall, but it's blooming anyway. Very pretty flowers, I hope we get some fruit.

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant: all blooming, no fruit yet.

Zucchini has both male and female buds, haven't opened but will soon. The sweet dumpling squash is growing happily, but shows no sign of flowers.

We're already harvesting basil; we'll put up a bunch of pesto this weekend. The spinach and lettuce still haven't bolted, and we're eating salads regularly from that.

The pole beans are very tall and happy, with buds but no beans yet.

And the ground cherry, an experiment for me this year, has been a very slow grower. Pretty little plant, but I'm not sure it will amount to much.

First day in the 90's here so I'm a little dazed from the heat . . . Let's see . . .

I got the broccoli thoroughly weeded, fertilized a second time and hilled. I'm beginning to think that the brassicas really appreciate this treatment. The broccoli seems to double in bulk just about overnight when I do this. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd do more than pull the weeds out of the cabbage - the hilling over fresh fertilizer must make some special difference.

Everything early in the larger veggie garden went in late - because of the late arrival of the "tractor guy". I should have heads of early cabbage by now, but don't. The kale has been harvested a couple of times.

Peas that were planted about 2 weeks late seem to be doing okay and are beginning to flower. Peas planted 4 weeks late aren't doing worth a ding dang. They are beginning to flower also . . . at about 10 inches of pale green growth.

I'm sure none of my tomato plants are 2 1/2' tall but most of them look fine (except on the outside row where they haven't been getting enuf water). Some have little green tomatoes but I'm not counting on any ripe ones soon.

Peppers are pathetic. Fortunately, 2+ weeks of cool, rainy weather hasn't affected anything else quite as much as the peppers. Unfortunately, there are the peppers . . .

In the smaller veggie garden (things started on time, for the most part), spinach planted after the radishes was harvested for the first time today. Lots of stuff has been harvested and pulled and some stuff replanted.

I almost forgot to plant the pole beans. Began looking around and realized that there weren't any teepees. In a matter of hours, it seemed, they were shooting up the poles! Heat and beans go very well together . . . I think I'll put in one more double row of bush beans and call it a season for them.

Reseeding the gaps in the 1st planting of carrots with seed in cornstarch gel has worked well. I probably should have used the gel the 1st time . . . Fingerlings really came up well, however. They should be ready to pull soon. Parsnips also came up well and I'll be needing to thin them real soon.

My potatoes are HUGE! I don't always grow potatoes and had a couple of conflicting notions about them. One - they shouldn't be planted in freshly manured ground. Two - they use lots of fertilizer. I used Whitney Farms in preparing the ground for them then added a good amount about 2 weeks ago. One big plus for them is that they are staying healthy, and bug-free.

First time ever, I had some corn to transplant out of the greenhouse. Without 'em, I wouldn't be able to say that I've got "corn, knee-high by the 4th of July!"

There are probably lots of other things going on out there but lately, what with the heat and all, I've been rather forgetful. What was I talking about, anyway?

Steve's digits

Well now I don't feel so bad here in Cheyenne. This is my first rocky mountain garden. Back in IN I would have canned the first back of bush beans and picked my first tomatoe. But here is what is happening. The bush beans have finally popped up. The tomatoes have lots of blooms, the roma has two good size fruits and one better bush has one furit. However, I think I am over watering my tomatoes. The tomotillos are just starting to flower. Ther herbs in the covered bed are doing well, but we have had to replant lettuce. I am just craving some home grown thing.

Today it is 65 degrees, we have only had about 2 80 degree days. The wind has picked up and is blowing about 20 mph.

Let's see.....

With all the rain the herb bed is bigger than ever.

I still have lots of lettuce (red simpson elite is my very favorite for not bolting).

Have lots of kale, swiss chard.

Parsley also loved the cool weather. Cilantro is beginning to bolt but have new plants growing all over the garden where I didn't plant them.

Peas are about done. Didn't get too many. Need to construct better climbing system next year.

Still picking green onions but not for long.

Radishes, carrots, beets are coming along. Nothing to harvest yet. Got them in late.

Spinach is beginning to bolt. But had an amazing spinach year. Gave away tons, froze some and still eating it as salad, in smoothies, sauteed...

Got two heads of cauliflower. Broccoli, cabbage growing but nothing to harvest yet.

More strawberries than we've ever had this year.

Green beans are beginning to climb the poles. Bush beans are coming up.

Tomatoes, squash and peppers are barely putting on some flowers due to the cool weather and I waited to plant them because I was still building the beds they were planted in.

Just planted short season corn and a row of basil seed. We'll see what comes of it.

Just put in store bought transplants of cukes this week and they look good.

May go buy a few transplants of eggplant as I didn't get the ones I had in the ground and they fried :(

Happy 4th! I'll be taking a big green salad to share.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely after the hailstorm a few weeks ago. They never cease to amaze me with their resilience. Only lost two varieties, so I'm quite pleased and Kotlas is going to be the first this year, even beating out Bloody Butcher. I lost Indian Stripe and Poma Amoris Minora Lutea with no backups, but there is always next year for them. Four other plants were shredded but I had replacements for them and they are growing by leaps and bounds.

Peppers are doing well and starting to form fruit. The eggplant is recovering well now, but I wasn't sure for awhile. The potatoes are going nuts.

The cutting celery is coming up. I'm anxious about this one. Carrots, radishes are doing fine. Herbs are thriving.

The squash really took a licking but is finally recovering and beginning to really grow.

The broccoli and cauliflower have sprouted in the house and will go in the ground late July/early August.

Nice to have Ma Nature take care of the watering for a few days here. :)

Well, I don't have all that much going on veggie wise, but here is what I've got:

My lettuces!!

And a pretty close up:

Jclepine-that's some awsome lettuce. Mine looks the same way! BTW I checked out your MY PAGE and found out it was your birthday today! Happy Birthday. Our 18th Anniversery is today. July 6. A great day for all kinds of things and I think it's going to get into the 80's wahoo.

Happy Anniversary, Babysteps!! What a wonderful time you must be having; eighteen years is a long time and you all must be very happy :)

Thank you for the birthday wishes! I am having a great birthday. We went to the hot springs and allllllll around the mountains. I lost count of how many fourteeners we were pointing at. Such an unusually green time to be viewing the state.

So Green somewhere on Hwy 17 or 285:

This is my first lettuce patch so I'm pretty thrilled.

Thanks again!

J.

Picked my first 'mater yesterday! Ironically, it was from my Beefmaster, which was supposed to have the longest days to maturity of all three. It's a little larger than a baseball, and just blushed yesterday so I took the opportunity pick it, and now it's sitting in a bag with a banana as I impatiently wait for it to ripen. My Early Girl plant still only has green tomatoes, and hasn't really taken off in size like Beefmaster and Husky Cherry Red have.

Peas are slowing down, tomatoes are growing like weeds. Oh, and I have a cauliflower question. Mine aren't formig heads. Should they be by now, and am I supposed to tie the leaves together when it does? Seems like I read something about that, but not sure.

Here is a shot of the veggie garden taken a few days ago.
{{gwi:11624}}

Pepper 'Revolution' coming along nicely. Wish there were more of them though ...

Tomato 'Bloody Butcher'

Lettuce 'Simpson Elite' which is starting to bolt. I'm glad I sowed some more lettuce indoors last week!

We've switched from cool and wet, to hot and windy this week.

What are we harvesting now?

Bonnie

My vegetable garden in July

The strawberries did well but seem done for the season. Fortunately the raspberries are ripening now.

The corn is up to about 5 feet tall :-)

The peas were good but they're getting uprooted now. But it gives room for the cucumbers.

The oregano patch is HUGE but at least it seems to be keeping the raspberries in check.

The blackberry bush purchased from Loews is all but dead.

The grape vine purchased from the local nursery is doing well.

The apple tree is growing well but there was hardly any flowers this year and then most of the apples got knocked off in the big hail storm in Aurora. Then the rest of them I removed because all the skins were broken by the hail. I have one apple left and the squirrels will probably get it :-(

Zucchini is mass producing.

Pulled out all the radishes, spinach, lettuce and oriental greens that were going to seed and used them as mulch.

Mammoth sunflowers are doing okay.

Sage, parsley, basil are doing good.

The little melon plants are flowering like crazy.

Tomatoes are good especially considering that they're planted in areas that were grass/weeds back in March.

Carrots and beans are looking really good.

I'm probably forgetting about some things but overall, excepting some slug damage, things are going well.

I have the biggest zucchini flower in the world today. It's Costata Romanesco, which is overall the hugest zucchini plant I've ever seen, with leaves maybe 18 inches wide. This flower, a female, has petals almost five inches long. Unfortunately, there are no male flowers blooming yet.

Other than that, we've harvested basil twice - put up a ton of pesto last weekend. The beans are blooming, tomatoes just setting their first fruit, peppers blooming but no sign of fruit, okra likewise. Spinach finally bolted, but we're still growing red and green romaine. I just planted a second round of radishes. No sign of flowers on the winter squash yet,

Very nice! Have you tried eating the flowers? I just read about that a couple of days ago, sounds like people like to stuff and fry them. Just for kicks I took a bite out of one of mine, raw. It was decent, just a light zucchini taste, but nothing to write home about. Not sure it would be worth the trouble to fry them.

My plant isn't quite that big, but still too big for my little garden. Thinking about cutting off a couple of big leaves that are now shadowing some of my other plants.

I may have to eat the flowers if I'm not going to get any fruits :)

Harvested 2 3-gallon buckets of Oregon SugarPod snow peas today - first of the season (finally!). With all the picking, weeding, watering, mowing, trellis building, etc. - I think we are too tired to prepare any of them for dinner.

Tomorrow, it will be time to get some of the 2nd planting of baby beets and in about a week it will be, broccoli.

There's a Dusky eggplant out there but only one and it is kinda skinny. I found a Bloody Butcher tomato with an all-over blush! It is time to get some more fertilizer in the veggies. I gotta grab that tomato before tossing around any of the smelly Whitney Farms fertilizer . . .

digitS'

Although I have friends complaining of what the hail has done to their tomato plants, I must be livin' right because this has to be the best tomato year ever for me...knocking on wood.

I am trellising with the Florida Weave and heavily mulched with straw and grass clippings. I also have not had to water much and then it was only for the peppers. Many of my tomatoes are 6-7' tall and all but a few varieties have fruit. I ate a Peach Garden tomato the other day and it was fabulous, but isn't the first one of the season always "the best"?? I have Blueberry blushing but the all rest of the fruit is green.

I planted French and pot marigolds throughout the tomatoes and also added a few borage plants near the rows. The borage flowers are so beautiful, I'll add more next year. Not sure if it's warranted, but I am giving these plants full credit for the lack of hornworms this year.

My 20 month old grabs whatever fruit she can, and she's quick, so who knows when we'll have another ripe tomato. She crouches to be at the perfect eye level for snatching. Her chubby mitts nabbed beautiful Ramapo F5s. Can't wait for the plants to put out more of those...

My peppers and basil are still sulking.

My cilantro went to seed, both the common and slow bolt.

The cauliflower, brussels sprouts and broccoli fed a bunch of worms before I noticed, so I'm not sure we'll eat anything from that.

My beets and carrots look great.

Peas did well but I planted them too close to raspberries and the kids lost interest quick. Next year, I'll give the peas higher support and plant in a more accessible place.

Cucumbers, Armenian and Poona Kheera, are finally doing well.

Happy Gardening -

I had my first Bloody Butcher tomato with breakfast this morning (!) and along with the bright aftertaste, my mind dwells on things tomato. There seems to be something about this warm-season plant that sets it apart from others and from what we might expect. If there is a difference of opinion, please don't hesitate to comment.

Now, I'm not saying that tomatoes can withstand frosts or pounding hailstorms and come out the better for it. Often "what doesn't kill us" makes us weaker. But, cloudy, wet spring weather seems to allow these plants to gather their strength and then rush into growth.

Spring here was about normal and my tomatoes look about normal but 'o8 was abnormally cloudy and wet. No other warm-season plants did well that year, some died, but the tomatoes came out of spring and had the best production of any year I can remember.

June 'o9 was just bad enuf that my peppers seem to be seriously impaired, everything else looks about normal. Here, we must be officially in the heat of the summer. It is supposed to be 88°F and yet the day dawns under slow moving cloud cover and a good size rainstorm is on the horizon. Rain is predicted for overnight and into Monday . . . ? I guess we are going to experience a little humidity.

Except that I won't be doing my usual Sunday bug killing and as long as they don't get struck by lightening, I'll say that this kind of weather should be good for everything in the garden, (including the 'maters :)

digitS'

I'm seeing tiny green beans now, and even the peppers have begun to set fruit. Lots of small tomatoes around but none ripening yet. If all the flowers produce though, we're going to be inundated with tomatoes next month.

The zucchini miraculously seem to be fruiting! Even though no male bloom has opened, the fruits are six to eight inches long. I'll try harvesting some this week.

I'm having the first 'Brandy Boy' with lunch today and 'Nineveh' and 'Skorospelka' maybe tomorrow, the BH will have a sweet pepper 'Northstar' on her salad tonight and maybe a cuke tomorrow or Wednesday.

My container pole beans are flowering but in-ground beans languishing, my bush 'Royalty Purple' are bearing.

Starting to get fruit set on tomatillos.

Harvesting garlic.

Looks like lettuce will be done and bolting today or tomorrow.

Container zuke and summer squash starting to flower, container tomatoes are behind in-ground.

Trellised 'Butternut' starting to set fruit and climb everywhere. Still getting bush and climbing peas.

All this and applying very little water to garden. :o)

Dan

Ate my first and only ripened Beefmaster last night, it was mouthwatering. However now I don't have any others that have even blushed, so back to the waiting game. I'll also be inundated with them all at once next month.

While in SW KS over the weekend I was able to take home some tomatoes from a friend, whose garden was packed with ripe tomatoes. Amazing how much farther along theirs were, though they won't last long now since it was over 100 degrees there.

Had a scare last week when I spotted red aphids all over my Early Girl, but fortunately after spraying them off they haven't been back. Seems the ladybugs were slacking, but are back on the job now.

Added grass clipping mulch last week to keep the moisture in since it's been so hot lately.

Just got back from pulling the pea hay. It's been in the mid-90's here, and they don't last long with that. I dunno if I will get Fava's, I planted them late and they don't look real good just now......

Onions starting to bulb up. Green onions are going gang busters. Leeks starting to look impressive.

My tomatoes are in two different beds - one bed, I have them down where they get some source of underground water, on soil we turned over from grass and added a huge amount of compost, then heaped up so the root toes are down in the moist ground, the rest above. Those are tomato plants - stalks the size of my wrist, 3-4 ft high, covered with fruit.

Then we have the main garden, where they just look awful. Maybe 2 foot high, very little fruit. I can do better.

My tomatoes are like David's main garden. Not much going on. The tomatillos have a ton of blossoms.

Today's harvest: kale for morning smoothie, two heads of cauliflower, 1 head of broccoli, huge green salad (probably one of the last before it goes to seed), radishes, green onions, parsley, cilantro (most of it going to seed now), few strawberries, lots of mint for vodka mojitos at tonight's book club:) .

My peas are done and didn't get much:( I love them so much next year I'll plant on better support in a different spot.

I got all the squash and pumpkins in late so they are just starting to look good but no blossoms yet.

I've harvested garlic and pulled most of my onions. Some still haven't died off yet. Horseradish is looking good. Okra and peppers are loving the heat and hitting high gear. Sweet corm maybe be ready by next weekend. Planted carrots late so I can leave them in ground for the winter. Got a good stand even in the heat. Ate my first eggplant last weekend. The early pole beans are blooming. And my tomatoes overall have done well. With the heat have lost a few but with 80 plus can stand to lose a few. Have been a variety of reasons. Haven't picked many yet but should pick up every week now. I plant a lot of my plants later so they will make it through the heat and then hit high gear around Sept 1st. Then if we don't have an early frost I will have lots of tomatoes till October 10th or later. As mentioned above here in extreme SW KS it can be hard to get plants through the heat if they are early ones and big. I only plant a percentage early for early tomatoes. Overall I'm having a good gardening year considering the drought we are in and little rain. Jay

We have the straw bale garden being experimented with.We also have a 10x32 hoop house up.The straw bales got planted a little later then we planned.They needed to excavate where they went in May so they were not planted until late.However now that the heat has finally started here they are taking off.I do not fully agree with the weed free comments about growing on them.LOL,, mushrooms of all shapes and forms.Anyhow we have been harvesting 4 to 5 inch zucchini off them.The pole green beans have finally made it taller the the squash.Onions planted inbetween bales are doing great.The cabbage/cauliflower/brussel sprouts/broccoli have started growing and look like we may see something soon from them.We have been harvesting greens of all types for quite sometime.3 of the early spinach have now bolted, yanked and the bales replanted to mesclun.Tomatoes are setting fruit not growing huge however nice blocky plants about 2 feet.Peas here are just starting to produce have in 4 types that run different times.cukes have babies on them.Radishes are being shared Beets are being thinned out as well.All in all when we look around at the gardens in our area that are growing in soil this one is as good or better.So we are happy with it so far.It does seem to need a lot of compost tea,,makes me really look at some of the other liquid fertilizers..I am thinking of experimenting on a couple bales to see how big the difference is.
In the greenhouse,, tomatoes plants in 1.5 ft tall containers are taller then myself,so they are over 4 ft tall, tons of blooms and fruit none turning color yet,,the food basket will be getting alot of tomatoes when they start ripening.Been picking zucchini and cucumbers out of there.70 pots of peppers are doing great in there fruit is setting on all except the habeneros ..peppers in the garden about 8" to 12" in the greenhouse jalapenos are pushing 2.5 foot..thats what we have going on here today.Speaking of the greenhouse it is watering time since the drip system is not fully hooked up yet,,
Mary

It's been a long time - since May I think - since I've been on the forum! We finally got the raised beds built and I planted from seed: tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, green onions, sugar snap peas and radishes about a week after mother's day (late). We at the rasishes a couple of weeks ago. They were EXCELLENT! We have delicious leafy salads when we want 'em - I guess we'd better hurry or they'll "bolt". I don't know what that is but it sounds like it's over after that. I have terrible cabbage worms on the broccoli and cabbage...White moths everywhere. Just got some veggie bug killer to try, and some tulle to put over them. I planted tomatoes and peppers from seed in March and again in May after I killed the first set. They are all still puny so I went out and bought a few plants to plop in the beds. Looks like we have 5 tomatoes and the peppers are flowering. While I was at it I picked up a yellow squash plant with flower. It didn't like the transplant but it will probably make it. I'm hoping everything else turns out as great as the radishes, spinach and lettuces have!

Harvested most of the shallots over the past week. The jury is still out on whether it makes sense to grow shallots from seed and then re-plant as sets. Well, it seems to have worked but these plants look like onions but divide and taste like shallots. They are still in the ground for the most part but the French Gray are all up and drying in the backyard. There are some blooms on the shallots-from-seed. I've grown shallots for 20 years and never seen a bloom but as I say, the plants look more like onions than shallots . . . . ?

My experiment with re-planting Caribe potatoes in July 'o8 resulted in "volunteer" Caribe spuds in 'o9 instead of a 2nd crop in the fall of last year. They didn't even come up last year and don't look so hot this year. On the other hand, my other spuds look wonderful!

I cut back the foliage and harvested a Gold Rush plant since they'd flopped over. Huge tubers and it's so nice to have new potatoes. My success here has to be fertilizing the plants just as they looked like they really wanted to start growing - and they sure did. Also, the potato bugs mercifully missed them this year.

Broccoli heads are coming off like Révolution Française royalty. (Did the Italians guillotine anyone?) Anyway, DD's boyfriend claims to have never seen such large heads of broccoli. Attribute it also the fertilizing a 2nd time and hilling the plants. They are Premium Crop this year which haven't always done well for me. Maybe, they just needed a little more attention.

Broccoli had better be quick because the temperatures are cooking here. Peas are going to be quickly toast except for some Mammoth Melting snow peas that haven't completely finished flowering. I hope they aren't toast at the flowering stage. Regardless, it hasn't been a very good pea year since the seed for all varieties went in the ground so late.

Zucchini has surprised me bursting into production but I suppose that's characteristic of the critters. I've set out more plants in the more protected little veggie garden where they'll have to hurry to beat the frost.

Bush beans are covered with blooms and the late-planted pole beans have reached the top of their 8' poles. The transplanted Fleet corn are real cute and tasseling. This may be the 1st year in many where I didn't feel the need to fertilize the corn twice or thrice . . . all plantings look just fine (?).

The puny peppers may be making good use of this heat and the cultivation & fertilizing I did a couple of weeks ago. Maybe . . . about the only positive sign I see at the moment is their dark, dark green color. But, they are going to have to grow some, sometime.

I've got little green melons on some of the Passport vines. Yay!

Steve

The arugula has bolted and I left some as an indicator, and I saw the first flea beetles yesterday.

Starting to see hummingbird moths, ambush bugs, lots of predatory wasps.

Dan

Speaking of onions, does anyone continue planting them throughout the season? Mine are about done, as they've almost all fallen over now, and I'd like to have some more green onions.

On the tomato front, what do you all do in regards to pruning indeterminates around here? My Beefmaster is huge now, well over 5' tall, and way over the cage. My thought is that perhaps if I start inhibiting the upward growth, it will start focusing more on the important part. Otherwise I'm going to need to figure out some additional caging or support. Maybe I'll give it another couple of weeks at least, but curious to hear others thoughts.

jeremy,

you could do seeds in June-ish for pulling around October. I'm like Steve and don't care for spring seeds - replanting twice, but seeds in summer is fine. You might be able to pull them off now if you started today and maybe one or two coverings for fall frost (120 days) if you're lucky.

wrt tomatoes, I have 3 vars taller than me or as tall right now, tom cages would never work; mine are all trellised. You'll want to look at CRW or cattle panel to overcome this issue, or trellising. I don't grow 'Beefsteak' so don't know for sure, but IIRC you can snip the top and deal with the side-growth. Maybe others can chime in.

Dan

Thanks for the reply, Dan. I think I'll give some more onions a shot, the ones I'm digging up are so tasty. Probably worth a seed packet to try, or I wonder if they still sell any sets at the big box stores. Walking through the grocery store yesterday I started wondering if I could just plant those green onions they sell in bunches, as they still have 1/2" of roots left, though I'm guessing they wouldn't grow. I just never need more than one or two for cooking and it's nice to have them fresh and ready to pick.

That storm knocked my beefmaster around quite a bit and bent a couple of branches, then I made it worse this morning by trying to get them back into the cage and snapped a couple. I'm definitely going to do something different next year such as CRW, but I don't think I could add it at this point. I just really underestimated how big this one would get so fast, it dwarfs the others. For now I might get a few stakes or rebar and try a florida weave to support the extra side and top growth. Live and learn!

Zucchini is already making more than I need, which it damn well better after taking over most of the garden!

I planted a set of green onions from seed in February, and the things are huge now, an inch in diameter, a big hit at the market. Planted a second set directly in the garden in mid-June, and they're going to be 'store size' in another two weeks. These are really good. My 'Candy' big, bulbing onions are now forming up pretty well, and I have some that are 4-5" diameter.

I spent the day weeding. I usually lay down a grass clipping mulch all around all the plants, black weed barrier between the rows, but this year, I never got around to the grass clippings. Good Grief. I spent the day and filled wheel barrows full of pig weed, grasses, and a cubic yard of thistle.

This year, my peppers are absolutely awful. I used a new bed for them, which I had thought was really good soil, and I worked in lots of compost and manure. Stunted plants, stunted peppers, a real mess. All of them. We're talking New Mex 'Big Jim' chili a whopping 2 inches long - plant after plant. Oh well. The only thing I can think of is I had really worked on lowering the pH in the usual bed rotation, but not in this one.

My fruit trees have the best fruit set I've ever had, and this is causing problems. Usually, we get enough late frosts that the amount of fruit / tree is pretty small. Not so this year. They're covered. I'm out there thinning peaches, plums, and apples by the fist full, ankle deep in tiny fruit, and still the branches are breaking. 15 foot high trees are bent over, branch tips touching the ground.

And this morning, slurping up my morning coffee and gazing regally out over the '52 estates, my eye was drawn to the sou-sou-east where the Kuban Burgandy Asian Plum had fruit that was absolutely glowing in the sun. So I wandered over, picked one, and it was ripe. We picked two 3 gallon buckets full. This, BTW, is a heckuva tree for the climate. Beautiful red foliage, grows like a weed, and good fruit.

No need to water after the rain last night, so I thought I'd take stock of the garden this morning. David, thanks for the tip on the plum tree! With your 52 references I wonder if you live nearby. We're near Fort Lupton. We had a old multistemmed peach tree with fire blight or some such disease and mostly dead trunks that we took the reciprocating saw to this spring. the BH dug out a bunch of soil around it, worried about spreading the fire blight to our new apple trees. It proved to be a bigger job than he anticipated and now we have a moat with bunch of peach suckers in the center. I was thinking of putting a fire pit in it, but maybe we should finish taking out the peach and plant a Kuban next year. I have 3 apple trees planted bare root 4 or 5 years ago. They are about 5 feet tall this year and they all flowered at the same time this spring. I have 13 apples on the center tree and one apple on another. I'm going the let the bugs have them this year since I haven't sprayed. My gooseberry didn't flower this year.

My three sisters garden has been a mixed bag. I planted a northern bicolor corn hybrid this year. I planted Gotta Have it corn from Gurney's last year and it was an utter failure. I added a lot more compost to the garden this year and am getting much better results. I planted Jack B Little, Connecticut Field, Giant Magic and Hybrid Spirit pumpkins and every seed sprouted. I get a kick out of pumpkins so I didn't thin them, just let them take over the garden. The Blue Lake pole beans just didn't germinate. I think I have 8 puny plants out of 28 sown, but the 8 are growing up the corn like they are supposed to. I planted 6 bush beans that have 3-4 inch beans growing on them.
The cherry belle radishes and leaf lettuce have come and gone. The carrots and potatoes are still too small to harvest. I'm starting to trellis the cukes on an old brass bed foot board.

I have 7 tomato plants. Early girl, Black Russian, Husky cherry and Gooseberry Cherry from plants I bought and Beefsteak, Heirloom and Sweet Baby Girl I started from seed in March. I've given up on cages and put a Tpost between every other plant, then make a loop with twine to tie up the branches to the t posts at 1 foot, 2 feet and 3 feet high. I loop around the branches of 2 plants and tie to the Tpost at each end of the 2 plants, if that makes sense. It works well if you keep up with it. We went on vacation the first week of July and everything grew a foot while I was gone. I didn't get the side shoots under control like I should have and am playing catch up. I have a lot of green tomatoes and flowers, but have only had one ripe early girl so far. I don't think it's been warm enough at night for the maters to flourish or I'm doing something wrong.

I lost one Anneheim pepper to hail, have a Big Jim that's 3 1/2 feet tall and setting fruit and a smaller Anneheim replacement that's playing catch up. I have been harvesting Oregon sugar snow peas. I have a lot of slugs and found my first tomato worms yesterday on the snow peas, so I'm hunting them down. I saw a lot of grasshoppers a few weeks ago, but the birds seem to be cleaning them up.

Not much to do this time of year but weed, water and wait!

I harvested the Yukon Gold and Gold Rush spuds this past week. They were flopped over and if I was goin' have creamed peas and new potatoes, it was goin' have to happen!

There are more varieties out there in the "field" still green and growing but I harvested 25 out of the 100 square feet, total. Yield: 19+ pounds. So, if that was extrapolated to an acre . . . I'd have had about 16 tons!!

ID/WA are the 2 states with greatest spud production in the USA. I'm hundreds of miles from the commercial fields but I came close to getting an average yield. . . so far.

I pointed out to DD that if the average family had a spud patch the size of an average home, they should easily have all the potatoes that they would eat during an average year . . . (Trying to get her to think a little about budgeting, self-sufficiency, and over-consuming starchy potatoes. ;o)

My shallots-from-sets-from-seed look great. I did myself a favor buying that seed in 'o8. And, I harvested the first big Utah sweet onions (I'm ecumenical in my choices of varieties). Of course, I haven't been shy about using these, the Walla Walla's, and the bunching onions for scallions right along. Oh, and there were the green onions from sets way back awhile ago.

I want people to think about growing bunching onions. Like other onions, they benefit from lots of fertilizer like well-aged manure.

I have had Tokyo White for the last few years. They don't form a bulb and do get rather large as the season progresses but they are real nice. The Four Season variety is wonderful but grows a little differently - really bunched, almost like a shallot but tastes like a very good scallion.

Stallion
(horse what?)

Wish I had room for potatoes!

Tomatoes are finally starting to ripen in larger numbers, picked some Early Girl and Beefmaster over the weekend, and I've had quite a few Cherry Reds as well. That heat last week must have done the trick, though this week it's supposed to cool down. They're all really good, but I'm going to try some heirlooms next year, since after reading this forum my store bought hybrids seem rather boring. Got a couple of 8' stakes for my Beefmaster, which is now well over 6'. It has an especially large softball sized tomato at the bottom I'm dying to eat. Probably should stake the Cherry Red also since it's well over its cage now.

Ate my first cucumber, which was a Boston Pickling. Quite tasty sliced, despite it not being meant for that. I doubt I'll make pickles anyway. Rookie mistake, I bought the first cucumber plants I saw, and then realized a couple weeks later that I was supposed to get "burpless." So I got some of those too, which should be ready later this week.

Been getting plenty of zuchini, and the damn plant keeps getting bigger and shadowing the rest of the garden. Another rookie mistake, next year if I plant them they aren't going in the raised bed.

Peppers are just now peeking through, no telling how long they'll take.

All in all pretty happy with my first real garden, and learning plenty.

Jeremy, this is my third year for a veggie garden, and I'm still learning from my mistakes!

We've had a couple of ripe cucumbers, Homemade Pickles, which I thought were fine in a salad, but none of my slicer types have started producing yet.

Harvested my first tiny Bloody Butcher tomato the other day, but it's still sitting on the counter. Also, harvested a huge Revolution bell pepper, and a small Healthy sweet pepper. Here's a pic:

The tomato plants in the garden have a few green tomatoes on them. The Bloody Butcher is in an Earthbox, but I lost quite a few of the tomatoes on it, due to blossom end rot, which I think was due to me forgetting to fill the water reservoir a couple of times.

Pulled the peas and lettuce the other day. I started some more lettuce seed in the kitchen window a few weeks ago, but it's been set back a bit, due to one of my cats snacking on it. Had to move to the guest room, where the cats don't have access. As soon as it recovers, I'll plant it out in the garden.

The beans are a bust. The grasshoppers completely demolished them. There are some sprouting at my community garden plot, where the grasshoppers don't seem to be a problem, but I don't know if they'll have time to produce or not.

Today, I'll be making my first batch of pesto.

I was thinking that the garden produced more last year, but then I went back and looked at last year's notes, and discovered that I didn't harvest my first tomato or pepper until the third week of August. I guess I'm just being impatient!

Bonnie

Wow - that's a monster bell pepper! Mine are only pea sized so far, probably because I had to transplant it due to proximity to the zuchini.

I'd like to make pesto, but can't seem to find pine nuts at my local grocery store. Tried some without, but it's not quite the same. Guess I should look at another store.

Shouldn't one of our great cooks be telling Jeremy about using something other than pine nuts for pesto?

I have just learned recently that some folks use things other than basil . . . !

Well anyway, I haven't tried any pesto but what must be fairly conventional recipes however here's one I found on the internet that uses sunflower seeds.

Steve's digits

We use almonds. Mostly because they're a whole lot cheaper. And that reminds me, I was supposed to fertilize the basil I planted where the garlic was pulled.

My DD11 will snork down the strongest, garlic-ist, most pungent pesto I can concoct. Has it for an after-shcool snack.

Jeremy, they only have tiny, expensive packages of pinenuts in the produce section at our groceries, but a fellow GW member picked some up for me at her local Costco, and brought it to the RMG Spring Plant swap : )

David, didn't you say you have made pesto with pumpkin seeds before, or was that someone else?

The recipe in my BH & G cookbook calls for pinenuts OR walnuts.

I just finished making a double batch of pesto, and froze in individual serving sized portions. It seemed to have a bit of a bite to it, but I'm not sure why. Maybe I added to much pepper. Couldn't be from the basil could it?

Bonnie

I also buy pine nuts at Costco. Bonnie, I didn't plant enough plants to have enough basil ready at one time to make a batch of pesto. Have you ever tried freezing the leaves until having enough for a batch? Any suggestions? I love pesto and even have the pine nuts.... just not enough basil all at once.

Connie

Well, I admire this little guy's aspirations at least. :)

{{gwi:1214741}}

Shelley, you should have that in a funniest photo's thread!

Basil certainly can have a "bite" - Bonnie. I don't know what causes that . . . it could be that it develops with some hesitation in growing, like a few days of cool temperatures.

A contrary herb in a few ways - I'm taking a basket of the stuff to the compost this morning. It turned black in a bag in the fridge . . . as usual.

However, it is definitely Basil Season and I've got a huge amount. Check your farmers' markets if'n you don't have enuf in the garden.

digitS'

Pesto yum!!!!

With the cool weather this year, I've had such a good harvest of parsley and cilantro that I have made several batches of pesto from both (separate).

For cilantro pesto I used walnuts and added lemon and a bit of cayenne in addition to the olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese. I made a Mexican pasta salad out of it once and added black beans and cut cherry tomatoes-store bought:( yummy.

For the parsley pesto I also used walnuts. My family liked it better than basil pesto because it is more mild.

I'll have to try almonds.

I'd love to try parsley pesto, unfortunately, the wintersown parsley plants, and all of the self sown seedlings were one of the things devoured by the grasshopper invasion. The only things they liked better in the herb bed, were the sage and the rhubarb. Now the monster sized French tarragon they didn't even touch. I wouldn't have minded if they had pruned that one a bit for me.

Maybe I'll sow some parsley indoors and at least have some growing inside over the winter ...

French Tarragon Pesto? Now there's a concept I hadn't thought of ......:-)

An 'extra sharp' cheddar cheese works well in a pesto as well.