Here is a general overview of what's going on:
Big Garden:
Pretty much watering every day. Even through the heat the beets continue to grow and thrive - I picked a white fleshed beet a few days ago that was 3 inches in diameter, perfectly round - just beautiful - and we need to think of canning some. We are pleased with the rate of ripening of summer squash and cucumbers - each day we get 1 or 2, and that allows us to keep up with the harvest. There is one lovely spaghetti squash that is nearly ready to pick. The melon vines look good, but haven't gotten around to setting fruit yet (I think...they can be hard to spot as the vines expand). We are picking from three rows of bush beans - Velour, Fresh Pick and Jade - and they are just wonderful. The blueberries are nearly gone (so sad!). The front row cherry tomatoes are really kicking in - we can fill a quart container with each day's Sungolds....the Sungold Select II, Ambrosia Red and Orange, Blush, Maglia Rose, and Green Zebra Cherry are coming in but not as tasty...they end up in a mix, often getting chopped up in salsa. Sadly, Fusarium and/or Septoria is taking a few plants - Tiger Tom is fighting gamely but will probably last only another week or two. Ambrosia Orange is very ill and will be pulled soon - followed by Ambrosia Red and, maybe, a Sungold.
Driveway - General:
The feeling of being overwhelmed kicks in with the driveway! Just the watering and tending takes quite a bit of time each day, but the extreme heat and lack of rain has made it harder than it should be. The Indeterminate and Dwarf Tomatoes are really starting to kick in - maybe picking 25-50 lbs of tomatoes per day for the past week. It is becoming a bit of a mess - plants topping everywhere (I lost control of pruning and topping, as usual), so some frequent rearranging and relocating. (I've got plants draped all over our front Boxwoods!). I am starting to lose a few indeterminates to disease or, in one case, a broken stake which went over, snapping the mail stem of Little Lucky. And Dwarfs are starting to drop here and there - still, I will get good seed from most everything I've planted. In fact, I am deep into seed saving - just today I had 40 cups of fermented seed to sieve, rinse and put onto paper plates - and saved seed from another 40 varieties as I prepped for our canning session.
I've hardly had time to pay attention at all to eggplant, sweet and hot peppers - but they look like they are doing very well. We've eaten some eggplant, and I need to do a major picking (and we need to do some preservation - maybe roasting and freezing the flesh for future use). The ornamental experimental hot peppers are just beautiful and starting to ripen - meaning...yes....more seed saving. My dozen bird-type peppers are setting fruit - I need to do a post on them soon (as well as the eggplant and Islander sweet pepper projects).
Future blogs will (when I find some time) focus on how the various projects are working out - indeterminate tomatoes, dwarf tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet peppers and eggplant. I could use double length days right now (and enough energy to work through those double days) to get things up to date.....but there's always tomorrow.
NOTE - Tomatoville seems to be down/unavailable tonight - I will update this blog if I find anything out.