John - May the stints be with you! You'll be digging up new gardens in no time.

It's going to get up into the 90s again for the next few days but then it will cool down a bit into the mid 80s. At least we have a decent shot at rain several days in the next 2 weeks.

Cindy, all of the new tomato seeds sprouted except the Delano Black, but I don’t think I cured them right. The Orange Ping Pong seeds look bad, but they all sprouted.

That's great, Richard. Don't think that I was interested in Delano Black so not a problem.

I just googled that variety and didn't find anything except a green tomato.

Len, those are the Transylvanian peppers. The tomatoes were all growing ”wild”.

Planted my last batch of late corn seed today, I have planted it as late as July 4th but those ears turn out about half size when they're harvested in Sept. Tomatoes coming in daily now (from the 3 plants I bought back in late March). The tomato plants I started indoors (also in late March) are still green and won't be pickable for at least 10 more days. Snap beans are coming in heavy now as are the cukes and squash. So glad we got almost 2" of rain on Tuesday.

Cindy, Lab, Linda, Margi, Richard, and Jack - Thanks for your concern. I'm back home with 2 new stents. From reports some vessels somehow have improved???? One was worse and got both stents. The others instead of 70% blocked were actually 30%.

I'm still going to stay cautious for awhile and not attack the extensive work that's piling up.

That's great, John! Glad that you are home and things are looking up. That sure was a short trip.

vgkg - I hadn't considered a third planting of sweet corn. May have to do that as I still have some of one garden that has space.

Vgkg - I am envious of your rain! It is currently 100 degrees and the wind is clocking in at almost 30 mph.

My first tomato harvest. :-)

Beautiful peppers Richard! I have tiny bushes so far (

Good to see you back John! That certainly was a lightning visit! Sounds as if everything went well. Rest up, and please take it easy :) No digging for a while!

Linda

Cindy and Lab - thanks again. If you were to go in thru the ER you may be delayed for all the testing necessary depending on how much time your condition warrants. But I went thru a lot of testing before hand. Some of which sounds like it was bad info. OR my suspicion about this being caused by the vax as I've stated before. How could your heart function change so drastically between an Echo and a Stress test. And with a diagnostic catheterization and a Doppler and then when they put in the stents there's drastic differences in the amount of plaque built up???

Anyway when he was telling me this I didn't say anything, raised no questions. But I would like to know how somehow I manage to dissolve 60% of the plaque build up in only a few weeks?

But I did need the stents I got. The procedure seems quite easy. I was conscious the whole time, no pain, no discomfort.

Glad you're back John! Sounds like a pretty good report. What limitations has the doc ordered for you?

Margi - I can't use what they say to determine what I can do; or not do. They seem incapable of reasoning about trimming 2 week old growth off a pencil diameter apple seedling. They tell me to walk; but not how far or how long. "No work". "Don't climb steps all day" I have to go to Cardiac Rehab 3 times a week for 6 weeks. That starts in 2 weeks. So I've decided they mean don't do anything but walk for 2 weeks and then I'll judge what I can do from what I do at the rehab sessions.

You "sound" good, John. Hope you are feeling as well as you sound.

It was another pretty perfect day here. Fairly low humidity and it only reached 83 degrees. It all changes tomorrow when the three "H"s return - Hazy, hot, and humid.

Take it slow John! Cindy we are melting here at 89 this afternoon and 99 tomorrow. I don't really believe in the global warming story but have to believe this is way hotter than we ever see. With every weather report I expect them to say it is going to blow away but no such luck so far.

I went out for a bit and pulled the asian peas, they were done. Thinking about harvesting everything on the snap peas tonight because the heat will end those as well.

Cooling down now and with the whole house attic fan we will be able to sleep. Not sure about the next few days though.

I have my first artichoke buds. Do they get bigger before I harvest them...only about the size of golf ball now but fully formed. Help appreciated from you experienced gardeners!

John, glad to hear you are back and feeling better.

My little artichokes

Hi everyone!! I picked 9 pounds of beans today and ended up making pickles with about half of them. I had enough cucumbers to make 12 pints of kosher dills also. One pint of the beans didn’t seal but I ended up with 5 pints that did and 3 pint-and-a-half jars. I added some cayenne pepper to the larger jars to make a spicier mix.
I hope all is well with everyone. It’s been a busy few weeks here.

Great news, John.

Cindy- will you PM me your address again, please. I want to send you that purple iris rhizome

It’s definitely summer here also. We haven’t had temperatures like some of you but it’s been in the 90s and humid. We had some storms the other night that helped cool things down for a day or so but things have heated up again.

Jamie - Nice harvest you have there. I just sent my address. Thanks!!

My son and grandson just left. We picked about a half gallon of berries that they took home.

But now, just tonight, the Jap. Beetles are back. They were not here earlier in the day. They are pretty much all over the raspberries. Tomorrow I will pick up a trap and place it down near the creek to draw them away from the berry plants. Last year they were not a problem.

Nice harvest Jamie...I picked one little bean this morning! We are enjoying raspberries and strawberries tho. If it gets cool enough after supper I will go cut all of the runners off the strawberries: I had not done that and they are a forest now.

Thanks!! The beans did a lot better than I was expecting. I had some pest issues earlier but they pulled through. I’m going to pull out the plants this coming week, I think. I don’t think these plants will produce any more.

Got it, Cindy. Thanks!!

Having coffee on shady corner of garden. It is hard to believe but they promise us 103 today and 111 tomorrow. So far they have been right but my inner child believes the wind will shift and blow this away.

Lea you are coming too I assume? When do you start your aspabroc?

It's already 106 on my N facing, shady front porch, forecast is for 113 today and tomorrow. It was 108 yesterday, and last night's "low" was 75.

I have aspabroc in the garden still producing well (I did put shade cloth over it), I think that I started it in April. The temps are going to have to drop down significantly before I try to start any more plants. I just looked up optimal temperature for germination of broccoli and it said 70-80º.

I wondered why the lettuce seed that I had outside in starter cells didn't come up, even before this heat wave. Then I found a chart that I had bookmarked:

Now I have lettuce seedlings in the house and I wonder when I will be able to put the poor little things out.

I have been gardening here for 45 years and we use to worry about a "green tomato summer". So many of the short season tomatoes were developed here at Oregon State; Legend, Oregon Spring, Santiam and more. Now I can plant varieties like Vernazza and expect to get ripe fruit.

Here's the page that chart came from: Seed germination

I got a little over two pounds of potatoes from the garden this afternoon. I’m going to use some of them for supper tonight and give the rest to an aunt.

Nice potatoes Jamie. I plan to hijack some early babies in the middle of the week when (we hope) it will cool down a bit.

Lea I thought I remembered you growing aspabroc through the winter which is what I want to try this fall. Was that plants that continued from spring?? I'm also going to try some brussels sprouts this fall/winter since DW loves them.

Lea - Your temps are warmer than here. Today we topped out at 94 with 97 predicted for mid-week for us. I cannot imagine temps of 113 degrees.

Nice spuds, Jamie.

I finished digging another variety of garlic today and unfortunately, I was late so most of the wrappers are gone. Will need to give it to the restaurant asap.

Len, I did have spring planted aspabroc goes through the winter, I plan to start some more to see if I can have that again. The ones I have now might call it quits with this heat, but I'll leave them in and see what happens. I had broccoli live over one winter, so in spring I cut it back hard, fertilized it and had new side shoots early.

Jamie, that's what I missed getting in this spring-potatoes, and we just love new potatoes. Seeing your beans makes me impatient for mine to start producing.

John, I hope you are continuing to feel good, I know how hard it is to limit garden work after a medical procedure!

We are experiencing a cool spell here now with highs around 80 thru July 4th before it warms up again to near normal temps for July.

I made a batch of traditional southern green beans at the lake Saturday with my first harvest. We had some golden beets with Ahi tuna for dinner last night.

I've harvested all of my garlic and it is curing in the shed.

My tomatoes are setting fruit again now that it's cooled down. With this cool spell they should set a lot more in the next couple weeks and still have time to ripen before fall. My peppers seem to have gone back into vegetative growth after I picked all of the early set fruit. They have almost doubled in size in the last week.

I picked up my new boat on Friday. We took it out on Saturday for a few hours to break in the motor after it stopped raining. Sunday morning we planned to go fishing but it was raining again so that was called off. We'll try to fish next weekend before the lake gets too crowded.

It is 90 already at 9 AM and the air is dead still. Hard to imagine 5 PM today!

I picked the snap peas this morning and that was probably the last. Also pulled up the rest of the garlic except for a few polish jenn that are in partial shade. A few heads were open but most still wrapped. Thanks to Cindy for getting me on that...leaves were browning but not as dead as usual but now not to worry it is all in the garage. I will wait until it cools off maybe Wednesday to hang it up.

Congrats on the boat Jack.

Turned on the sprinklers and irrigation lines early this morning to give the gardens a complete and deep soaking before the next 4 daze of a dry and hot mid/upper 90's forecast. Picked some squash and tomatoes before I got drenched in the humidity out there. Hopefully the Thursday evening and all day Friday rain forecast stays on tract.

Len, how are you feeling about global warming now? 116 degrees in Portland, Oregon-8 degrees hotter than it has ever been in their history. What a brutal nightmare and lots of houses in that area don’t even have A\C-can you even imagine that? It is still raining here-has rained every day for the last 7. Groceries are already sky high after Covid (New York Strip steak went from $7.99 a pound to $13.99 now. All the meat (other than chicken) is at its highest price ever. I almost passed out yesterday trying to cut down a very annoying tree that is so hard it shoots out sparks when trying to cut it down. Finally had to use an axe to cut the last portion down.

I am in the midst of an atypical break from summer heat here in Kansas. I do feel for Len and Lea having to deal with the heat when not accustomed to it.

Any guesses what might have left this evidence behind? Too big for a mouse, right?

It was 88° here Sunday, 92° yesterday, and it's 89° today here on my porch in the shade at 4PM. They were predicting 92° for the official temp here today. 70% humidity. Might cool many of you down..... a little? I've warned to stay out of this. The last few mornings I went out in the morning just for a walk, today I never got farther than the porch for a few seconds.

The warmest I've ever known here in the burgh was 103° in 1989. But I was working in Columbus Ohio then where it was 106° for 3 days. My employer was paying 8¢ a mile for expenses so I had bought a rear wheel drive Toyota w/o air. Only car I ever owned w/o air.

Margi, My guess is young rabbits.

John - The temps recorded at the various local airport in the area were lower than what my weather station has recorded for today. My "station" reads 97 for the high for today.

Richard - That my be right for the droppings.

Here's what our heat wave of 112-115 temps did, besides burned hydrangeas, rhododendrons and more, some of our blueberries really were fried.

Sorry Lea...we had some damage as well but not that severe. Thankfully it is much cooler here today, almost comfortable outside in the shade.

Edit...I did a walk about just now and we probably lost all buds on rhododendrons for next year along with a lot of burned foliage, ditto hydrangeas. My dahlias will recover but be set back a few weeks. No damage to weeds though...bindweed and knotweed alive and well:(

I'm going to harvest the snap peas that are left tomorrow and pull the vines because they are definitely done. I am going to grow some fall beans on that trellis so they need to get out of the way! Time to get some of my fall crops started as well.

Oh, Lea. Your poor blueberries. So sorry that you are having these setbacks. I have never seen that happen. Sincerely hope that your temps break soon.

Lea and Len - I'm so sorry for the damaged plants and fruit. Hopefully all is not lost and can be salvaged.

Here is the heartland we are having rain day after day. At my house we have received about 8" in the last week but areas to the north and east have gotten nearly double that amount. The rain is supposed to end by noon tomorrow.

I haven't even gone out to the garden since Sunday due to the rain. I imagine I may have some monster summer squash out there. I need to pick the bush beans too and take them to the lake. I'll have to do that while I'm 'working' tomorrow. Nothing like getting paid to harvest the garden!

We are heading to the lake tomorrow afternoon and it is supposed to be nice, sunny, and temps in the low 80s through Monday. I'm hoping to get lots of fishing in. Hope they are biting!!

Good luck on the fishing Jack...

We hit 99 degrees at my house today. Down to 96 now.

Around 2pm today we received a notice that we are under a severe t-storm watch - until Friday morning!! It's the longest watch I've seen here. This watch will last over 42 hours.

ETA - My mistake. The t-storm watch goes into effect tomorrow afternoon, not today.

Good luck Jack, the fish are always biting when you have a boat.

Sorry to hear about the heat damage Lea. Hopefully the weather will revert to normal soon.

I have had a small problem with the top blackberries on my bushes that are somewhat shaded but no problems with the ones inside or below others. My two blackberry bushes in the sun are not producing at all-haven’t gotten a single berry off either of them in over a month.

Temps on Sunday 105, yesterday 84, today 73. Crazy.

It was in the mid 90s today, but it rained 3 times, so it kept cooling off. Rain is forecast through the weekend and into next week.

Jack, wow, so much rain! We have no hope of getting even a small fraction of that here, our summers are typically dry after June and we are very dry this year.

Len, the temperature change was amazing Monday night when the west wind came in. The clouds were a wonderful thing today and I was able to plant my little basil starts out tonight.

Most of the vegetable garden did okay, kept it watered of course, but the really happy plants were the winter squash and a cantaloupe. Well watered and mulched they were like woo-hoo, get out of my way! I should have zucchini in a few days and my sugar snap peas are still producing.

We survived. I saw this meme on Facebook-sums up our feelings.

Good luck with this heat, everyone. I really hate that you are experiencing this.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6143194/veggie-tales-july-2021