A Hot One

It has been hot all week, with temperatures pushing into the high 90s. The next couple of days are supposed to be the first consecutive 100-degree days since July 2009. That is a good indicator of how lousy the summer weather has been the past three years.

I have begun harvesting tomatoes, although it still will be a week or so before the plants ripen a lot of fruit. Regardless of the variety, all of the tomatoes at the garden site ripen around the same time. Everyone gets loaded down with tomatoes and can't give them away fast enough.

Production is a little sketchy this year. I've harvested quite a few cucumbers, and there might be a second, smaller harvest in the next few days, but I didn't get as many as I thought I would. The Straight 8 variety is especially stingy. 

I finished harvesting fava beans. There were only two plastic grocery sacks full of beans from nearly an entire row of plants. This is about the same yield as last year. I'm thinking of trying a different variety next year to see whether the crop yield will improve.

My bush beans are doing great. I grew a first-time variety this year called Black Valentine, an heirloom. They are moderately thin and long. They don't have the--not sure what other people call this--fuzzy skin on the outside of the pod, which seems prevalent on some varieties. The smoother skin seems to be make the fresh pod taste sweeter. I like munching on these while I gardening.

There is a bumper crop of winter squash this year. I have yet to take an inventory of what is on the vine, but I see additions every day. A few of the crossbred Delicata plants were slow to produce, but now are pumping it out. My Rouge Vif D' Etampes pumpkins have been good producers, too. This was another crossbred seeding, but unlike the Delicata offerings, there are no oddities so far.