I don't know that I'd agree it is not a very good year for my veggie garden because some of my veggies have produced their heaviest crop ever. However, it is not a good year for some things.

Congrats on the melons, by the way. That gives you something to look forward to.

My results are mixed.

For the cool-season crops, the lettuce and other mixed salad greens, onions, leeks and potatoes produced our highest yields of those items ever. Only broccoli and cabbage were a total disappointment, and sugar snap peas produced well but for a much shorter period of time than usual. I didn't plant carrots because I could tell from the weather it would be too hot too early. I might try them later in the fall.

For the warm-season crops, our tomatoes produced very well in April and May (which is a reminder that early planting is ultra-important which we all know, but sometimes forget)and in the first half of June. In mid-June they started slowing down. Still, we have plenty for fresh eating, if not for canning. We have given away a lot of toms this year because so many of our friends lost their plants to hail. Otherwise, I would have canned several batches of salsa by now. The cherries are slowing down a little, but then our highs have been 106 or 107 lately, so I've slowed down too. At least they are still setting.

We filled up the freezer with snap beans and sweet corn.

Peppers were slower to start setting and ripening fruit, but they kicked into gear the last week or two so we're harvesting quite a lot now, and I have no complaints about the peppers. Well, except that some of the jalapenos are so much hotter this year. Hot peppers are always hotter in hot, dry years so this year's crop is sizzling!

Squash just keeps on keepin' on and I'm getting tired of looking at it, much less picking it, cooking it, eating it and freezing it. Still, I know I'll miss it when it's gone.

What's left? Hmmmm. Okra plants are growing incredibly well and flowering and setting pods. It is going to be a great okra year here. Watermelons have tons of melons in various sizes from little ones the size of walnuts to larger ones the size, so far, of soft balls and every size in between. If they continue doing as well as they're doing down, it will be the bset melon year in several years.

Muskmelons are flowering and setting fruit and look healthy so far. Cucumbers are struggling in the heat, regularly wilting heavily at mid-day, but they bounce back near sunset so I guess all I can say is so far, so good. Hopefully we'll get a good harvest so I can make pickles.

Lima beans are blooming heavily but suffering blossom drop, so we may not get lima beans from these plants this year. It is just hotter than they like it.

I planted a lot of southern peas (several pinkeye purplehull types, crowders, cream peas, etc.) and they are in bloom and just reaching harvest stage. I picked the first mess of purplehull peas yesterday or the day before (I was out at a fire most the night so was awake all night long and then out at another fire in 107 degree heat today so my sleep-deprived brain is frazzled and I can't remember when I picked them, but I know I did pick them!) I expect a large harvest of southern peas.

Winter squash was interplanted three sisters style with corn and a pole variety of southern peas, so they are just now begininng to really take off now that the corn has been harvested. So far, so good.

Strawberries produced well and blackberries so-so. Fruit trees did nothing. Herbs have been fine, but the heat is making a lot of them try to go to seed earlier than usual. Flowers are a mixed bag, but the ones in the veggie garden's borders are still blooming, which is more than I can say for most of the flowers elsewhere in the yard.

While it isn't our best garden year ever, it probably is in the top 4 or 5 since we moved here it terms of production. However, I've had to give it a lot more attention and a lot more pampering than usual to keep everything happy and growing, and with our number of fire calls rising almost daily, I am going to run out of time to do that at some point.

Today I didn't get to work in the garden at all because after finally going to bed shortly before sunrise, I obviously slept throug the cool morning hours. I hope to be able to get outside long enough this evening to harvest stuff for an hour or so before sunset.

My plan for next year is pretty much the same as for this year---to plant with potential or ongoing drought in mind, and to push hard for an early harvest so that I can get as much out of the garden as possible before the heat arrives.