As usual, so jealous - you are well ahead of us! I have two gardens, one in the "big city" and one in the mountains, and neither is doing anything like producing a ripe tomato. Colorado has had nice moisture but not as much heat as some years. I harvested a nice basket of garlic scapes last weekend (blanched, chopped and froze in baggies for stir-frys) as well as a lot of cilantro. Picking lots of chamomile and some lavender. Beet greens and chard aplenty, though no beets. Lettuce is going to seed and we'll start another crop later in the summer, for fall harvest. Corn is only waist-high. Pole beans are flowering as are the squash/pumpkins. We almost have our first cabbage and baby carrots, at which point we will have cole slaw...

Oh, and dill. Sooooo much dill, it's everywhere. I really need to stop it from going to seed all over the yard this year! :)

I had my best cool season garden ever this year, one I almost didn't plant! I don't know if you'd heard Steve, but we got a tremendous amount of rain in May and June. I've seen reports of anywhere from 11-15" for the 2 month period. That's an entire year's worth of precip in 2 months. It was too much, more than the clay could hold, so there's been road flooding and water in basements, crawl spaces, etc. We've had hail 7 times at my place, rounds 3 and 5 were pretty devastating, so I've had to start over with a few of the warm season plantings, beans, peppers, squash and tomatoes, etc.

I've never done well with cool season plants, I start too late and things like radishes, lettuce and broccoli usually bolt before I get to harvest much. This spring was perfect. All I had to do was sow the seed and Ma Nature did the rest. There were lot's of salads being eaten and really good broccoli. It's just now bolting.

We've been very cool in addition to rainy. I've seen one 90 degree day and we topped out at 94 yesterday. Usually we're in the 100's by now. I don't mind! The warm season plants are very behind, except a couple of tomato plants that didn't get the memo and are really taking off.

I'm just now finding a few dry spots in the non-veggie beds, so time to start watering again. It was a great spring for planting trees, wouldn't you know I only had 8 to plant, but they couldn't have gotten a better start.

My daughter's here and yesterday morning we puttered around, eating strawberry, pea and cherry tomatoes right off the plants. It's summertime and the living is easy.

Happy Independence Day!

Gardengrl66 said: "... I have two gardens, one in the "big city" and one in the mountains, and neither is doing anything like producing a ripe tomato"

Something like my gardening. The Yellow Jellybeans were only on the potted plants in my backyard. The distant garden's tomato patch looks like this, without a single ripe fruit:

I have gotten a few peas and beans with many more to come!

And yeah, the hail has been awful. My green house was destroyed a few days ago :(

I'm Sorry, L Clark!

Steve

Oh, no Lane, that's terrible! I remember seeing pics of it you've posted. Did it have a poly roof? I hope you can replace it.

This hail season got me thinking it might be time to consolidate my growing spaces. I have an old 10 X 20' steel framed canopy. We've only used it for parties. I'm thinking to set it up on the east side of my barn and using hardware cloth instead of the canvas top. It's goal for next spring, It was just too time consuming and stressful to try to cover plants in 3 different areas this spring and not very effective in our winds. Of course if I do that, we won't get hail for years, lol!

Steve, your tomatoes look amazing!

Barb

yeah, it was a big bummer. I have the Tufftex corrugated polycarbonate stuff. The hail got the roof, but not any of the walls so that's a silver lining. Funny you mention the cloth, treebarb. The thing that saved my plants inside the greenhouse (except my Meyer lemon which finally was growing three lemons ugh) was my shade cloth that I have strung up on wires near the roof that I can draw and retract. The cloth was drawn so it caught the hail and a lot of the shattered plastic and saved the plants beneath. Now I just need to to replace the roof panels. Big project, and no time for it...

I follow a couple of local gardening groups on Facebook. There were lots of posts about folks getting hail hit at some point this season. The common theme for those that didn't get damaged gardens was that they used hail, hardware or shade cloth.

I'm really sorry Lane! I hope you do find time to get to it before winter, I know what a season stretcher your greenhouse is for you. If I ever get a greenhouse, I'll look into insuring it!

Yeah, I do think homeowners insurance would cover it. I estimate about $400 of damage was done to the greenhouse, however, I'm pretty sure the deductible is like $1000 lol. I am wondering about damage to my house's roof though. I'm going to file a claim and see what happens...

I harvested lots of peas. They are all done now. So far I have picked four yellow squash. I will have enough ripe green beans to pick them this afternoon..I have eaten several rat-tailed radishes and giving away several bags of them to anyone that would take them! 😁 I think I will be cutting them back soon and pickling a couple of jars worth. They are trying to take over the world and my beats and carrots want some space. I have picked lettuce and spinach a couple of times so far also. This is the best garden I have had in quite a while. I have been fortunate that the hell has missed me.

My speak text has done fairly well here today despite Houzze!

It's been a slow year here for warm season veggies. I estimate we've had about 20 inches of rain from May through early July. Eight of it came in a day. I did use a cold frame for some peppers and another for sweet potatoes earlier in the season and they're doing well.

We've had a great run of lettuce, kale, Red Orach, parsley, green onions, strawberries, lovage, garlic chives etc.

Tomatoes are starting to perk up as the beds are slowing becoming not saturated.

Twenty inches of rain would be just about or slightly more than our average YEARLY TOTAL!

For lunch today we had our first green beans. There aren't many but that should change before the season is finished. The first planting had terrible emergence. Second planting filling in -- same story. Bought new seed and those came up just fine. Dang. That first seed was purchased just a few years ago. How many years would it take beans to really lose viability? I don't remember this happening before. Anyway, we are on a role now.

Dinner last night was simple - scrambled eggs with cheese and shallots with fruit from the supermarket. The eggs made use of the first jalapeño peppers. And with a day ending on an egg note, 2 eggplants had also been harvested.

Steve

Amen to beans! Had our first meal (also not very many but that will get better) with grilled pork chops and grilled butternut squash (I still have three left from last season).

No jalapenos yet - well, some very small ones on the plant. I had a bunch of volunteer Swiss chard growing amongst the corn and pulled it all, got five freezer bags' worth, about 8 ounces each once it was cleaned and blanched. For winter :)

@digit (ID/WA, border), I am sorry about the seeds that were a dud. For what it is worth, I save my bean seeds (and many other veggie seeds). It is not hard, so long as you don't have a hybrid variety. I just let a few pods on each plant get dry and put them into a glass jar. That way there is fresh seed every year!

Jumping the gun just a little for the Yellow Sugar Buns.

Sweetcorn harvest is ongoing.

Lunch today was vegetarian. Except for the salt, pepper and some butter for cooking -- everything was from the garden: hash brown potatoes, sauteed sweet peppers, choy sum, and the last of the snap peas for awhile.

Hopefully, the late planting of peas, that won't be up for another day or two, will mature early enough that we aren't just eating tendrils before the cold slows them down to nothing. Pea leaves & vines may be able to take some frost but flowers will blacken & die. Probably 50% of the time, we will be eating tendrils rather than pods but I just feel lucky to have the seedlings emerge and set off growing after, what is usually, the hottest days of Summer. Besides, tendrils taste like peas .... ...

Cilantro seedlings are ready to set out in the midst of the corn plants which will provide them shade and we can have cilantro during the peak of the tomato harvest. And, more Asian greens will be planted out in a couple of weeks.

Steve

Breakfast this morning -- with a little from each of the first melons from the garden:

• Goddess cantaloupe
• Passport Galia

Both of these varieties come through for me year after year (Ambassador Galia also does well. :o)

I have a new Galia - Brimos and for the first time, a Crenshaw - Lilly. They are all looking good in this hot, dry Summer.

Steve

I am getting tons of green beans and carrots.

Harvested the garlic two weeks ago . It’s been curing and yesterday I trimmed it up. Also the first pass on the green chiles. Will roast them tonight, some for dinner and most into the freezer. Getting a few carrots, harvesting a cabbage every week or so. And the first plum tomato is juuuusssst about ripe!

It is a very good year for warm-season crops, once again. The tomatoes are a little delayed but I am finally bringing in more than we can make fresh use of. That was mostly cherries but now the Bloody Butchers have really begun to show up. A Very trustworthy variety in that regard.

Still waiting for a Crenshaw to ripen but there are so many others that we have needed to give melons away. (I have lost the Brimos Galia plant marker out there in the galia patch and will have to find it and sort out the vines to make some kind of comparison! )

Peppers are coming on strong and we are comfortable leaving many to ripen on the plants in the garden rather than pick and use them all, green. This certainly isn't the usual case since time tends to run out for the larger peppers most years.

Steve

Those are some Lemon Cucumbers there with the Gypsy Eggplant - lots of both these days.

I can't hardly imagine how we have melons this early, now for over a week. The first Lilly Crenshaw is in the photo. Earliest tomatoes are in good supply but melons and tomatoes neck and neck? The picture is just of our earliest 8oz slicer with a few of the Bloody Butcher tomatoes. It's a Gary O Sena and with no Big Beef in '23, the Gary O ripened first. A CASCADE of Yellow Jellybeans and Large Red Cherries are coming off the plants. DW claimed that she wanted the LRC's again and I am surprised. They have a more tender skin, less seedy, and are certainly smaller than when we had them years ago. The size is okay and the tender skin and fewer seeds are appreciated!

Things change. One might not expect that from an heirloom. This is another year for good production in the warm-season parts of the garden. I am having some trouble keeping up with the watering needs but have been fairly lucky with showing up at the distant big veggie garden when the wind has cooperated with the sprinklers to not blow the irrigation water into Montana or Canada.

Steve

Just got my first cuke today. Pathetically late, but I’ll take it

Just got the first zucchini :) Everything is late around here. No sign of eggplants yet, just a couple of flowers...

The Cocozelle, crooknecks and straightnecks have really been coming on the last few weeks, way more than we could eat and I'm not ready to process them for freezing yet. They're loaded with flowers. We had a small get together yesterday and I offered a few interested guests a stroll through the beds to pick what they wanted. I have one Cocozelle left now, so I'm caught up till the next wave comes in.

Grasshoppers got every single ear of corn and my pole bean plants. Nolo Bait wasn't available this year, so I tried Eco Bran and I don't think it even put a dent in the population. I was pretty diligent in lopping and bagging the dock seed heads in June, but I see now the plants are a favorite of the grasshoppers. I may leave more up next year as a trap crop.

I have lots of green tomatoes. There was a flush of ripe tomatoes in early July, but then we got really hot and the plants stalled. We have a hot week to 10 days coming up, so once that's passed I hope the tomatoes get back in gear.

The peppers are puny, but at least producing.

I just saw my first eggplant fruit, not quite ready to pick, but I was glad to see it.

Digit, your bounty is amazing!

Dug the first hill of potatoes. Ate half of them already for breakfast (in a burrito with one of the Anaheim chiles and last summer’s salsa) but here’s the rest:

Blue Lake and Tendergreen beans. forgot what kind of carrots. Forgot what variety of zuch (I let it get too big, man they get too big in the blink of an eye) and Marketmore cucumbers. Holy moly the cukes are great. best I’ve had

Nantes carrots

I have liked Nantes carrots real well. DW goes for longer .... the result, in our rocky soil, are crooked carrots. I may have finally convinced her not to go long ...

“Smaller tomato” bounty so far — Yellow Jellybean & Large Red cherries, Bloody Butcher, Porter and Lemon Boy Plus (smaller than expected. The cherries have been unloading for about 10 days.

Steve

Lunch, yesterday:

Pan fried tilapia with dill

Green beans

Winter squash (not bad, even now!)

Bok choy

The bok choy was all flower stalks. It may sound strange but I prefer them to the heavy stems of younger plants. The intent when setting out the transplants is to keep some of them going until this stage so, the starts are a little crowded. Some are pulled and come into the kitchen to be used young. Those remaining certainly find good use – think broccolini.

Lunch today:

Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with AC vinegar, s & p

More Greenbeans

Leftover tilapia with potatoes, carrots, shallots, garlic with milk made into chowder!

Zucchini bread

All veggies for both days were from the garden. Feels a little like Fall. It is a very cloudy day with frequent sprinkles.

Steve

Sounds yummy! Zucchini are still pumping out fruit and tomatoes are coming on strong now. I sowed fall broccoli and cauliflower a few weeks ago, but just a few seedlings have come up and are not appreciating the heat. The last day of 90 degree temps look to be Saturday, then 70's for a week after that. We dropped to 47 degrees night before last. I cheated while buying a few mums for porch pots, the nursery had starts of lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower, so I picked some up in case mine don't pan out. I'll plant them late Saturday afternoon. I'm looking forward to some cooler temps and hopefully some rain.

Things are winding down and noticibly growing slower or not at all. Getting tomatoes finally. And apples! Here’s a honeycrisp. Exceedingly sweet and crisp.

Whacked down the Basil today and did the annual pesto-fest. Yogurt container is one we are giving away, others for the freezer…