Hotter and hotter

The roses are flushing out again.  They're quite happy with the heat and lack of rain.

But I've had to start watering again for everyone else.

Thankfully, the 'German Johnson' slicing tomatoes did set some fruit.  I've gotten a few ripe ones, but now they're taking their time ripening due to the blistering heat.  It barely cools off enough in the middle of the night to reach the 50-80 degree temps required for ripening. 

The 'Speckled Roman' sauce tomatoes have been ripening all along, however, and have set lots of fruit.  Raccoons leave evidence daily.

I made a pint of sauce from the romas and 'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes (which haven't produced as much fruit as they normally do).

'Speckled Roman' and 'Supersweet 100' tomatoes

The recipe called for some sugar, and it's too sweet for my taste.  I'll have to add some lemon juice when I use it.  Neither variety has enough acidity to warrant adding sugar.  Next batch, I'll delete the sugar and add some basil.

I'm finally seeing some fruit develop on the small Persian cantaloupe vines.

In my attempts to keep melons safe from raccoons, I ordered these screen barriers for roots and bulbs to protect underground.  I got the idea from a video online.

Perhaps in an unnecessarily early stage, I wrapped a 'Sugar Baby' watermelon in one as a test.

The melons on the compost hill have grown over the potato plants that I hadn't yet harvested.  I thought I had more than one still in the ground, but could only find this 'All Blue' plant.

I won't be planting them again.  The spuds are small and turn gray when cooked.

I was disappointed when I thought I wasn't going to get many jalapeños this year, and then I found out I had simply forgotten which plants were which varieties.  There aren't many, but at least there should be enough for a batch of jalapeño jelly.

Now to go dance for rain.