But - we are in late June, approaching July. The plants are loaded with flowers, and many of those flowers already set fruit - so the plants could also be loaded with tomatoes, or peppers, or eggplant that are rapidly getting bigger. We are nearly at the time of the garden cycle when we reduce our dependency on trips to the Farmers Market and start picking our own. This is why we put ourselves through this - we are nearly there!
Just a quick report - the lettuce is now gone (whatever hadn't bolted was consumed by the groundhog, it seems). We are harvesting beets (and beet greens, of course, which we like even better than the beets themselves)...summer squash/zucchini, blueberries and a very few early cherry tomatoes (Mexico Midget, Sungold Select II - which seems to be red, not gold - indicative of remaining instability; Sungold, Ambrosia Orange), eggplant (from the plant we kept alive over the winter in the garage), basil, chard, and kale. There are also some small hot peppers which are perfectly usable, though they are not yet full sized. I've noticed fruit set on Spaghetti Squash and, perhaps, a cantaloupe. The beans that were not damaged by the groundhog are getting ready to flower. Pretty much all pepper, eggplant and tomato plants are flowering and most have set fruit. My bet for the first large size ripe tomatoes - Giant Syrian (already coloring up - and it is a one pounder at least), Hege's German Pink and German Johnson.
My tomato plant losses are holding at around 10 plants - a few with Fusarium wilt, a few with Tomato Spotted Wilt, a few with Bacterial Wilt. The spread of Septoria and/or Early Blight seems to have slowed down considerably. I went out this morning with my big ball of twine and tied up eggplant and peppers and a few about-to-flop tomatoes.
On tonight's menu - Chard (and Beet Greens and Kale) Tart with steamed summer squash. From the garden!