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.

Still hot - but then....a miracle!

Somehow, it's not as objectionable to be this hot in July as it was in the middle of June.

BONUS:  The weather forecast was calling for .03" of rain overnight.  I'd take it if that's all we were going to get, but....

We got 1" of rain!  Happy dance.  We also got some hail, but thankfully, no damage.  The garden looks as relieved as I feel.

The jalapeños are still looking poorly and aren't fruiting yet, but the snack peppers are fruiting and managed to grow well with periodic watering.

foreground left: snack peppers from seed of grocery store peppers, 

right: volunteer 'Marketmore' cucumber; background: 'German Johnson' tomatoes

small sweet ("snacking") peppers

This year I'm trying a second cucumber - 'Beit Alpha'.  An internet page pronounced it "bite alfa" so that's what I'm going with.  It's reported to have a tender enough skin that it doesn't need to be peeled.  I'm not a fan of unpeeled cucumber, but I'm giving it a chance. 

'Beit Alpha'

My standby 'Marketmore' plant is really struggling, but a volunteer over in the tomato patch seems to be doing fine.  You can see a big difference in the form and surface of the two varieties even at this early stage.  

'Marketmore'

The plants themselves don't look much different, except the 'Beit Alpha' flowers are much larger.  And by not much different, I mean the leaves look pretty much the same.  In the picture below, 'Beit Alpha' is on the left, and 'Marketmore' on the right.  There's quite a difference here, but I believe it's due to the start they each got. I don't know why 'Marketmore' lagged so far behind, unless 'Beit Alpha' is more drought tolerant.  And possibly, 'Marketmore' was undermined more by moles, which are excavating the whole darned garden.

The literature says 'Beit Alpha' is best when picked small.  Small being relative term, I wasn't sure when to pick it.  I picked one this morning that's 5" long, and they're right that you can eat them without peeling.  The skin is very thin and tender.  Not bitter at all.  I'll be planting these again.

'Beit Alpha' cucumber

'Beit Alpha' cucumber

'Speckled Roman' tomatoes are looking good (much better than 'German Johnson' - see last post for comments on that).

Unfortunately, they look good to the raccoons, too.

I'm eager for these 'Sugar Baby' watermelons to be harvestable.  I suppose I'll have to share with the raccoons if I can't figure out a way to protect them.  Unlike other melons I've grown, these seem to have a lot more female flowers and are showing little fruits all along the stem.

That's a picture from three days ago. This is the same couple of babies after last night's rain:

They're fast!

They're growing along with (and being overtaken by) small Persian cantaloupe on what has been my compost hill in years past, so I haven't decided how I might try to protect them yet.  I think the cantaloupe maybe does better trailing on the ground than up on cages, which is how I always grow them to save space in the garden proper.  

I'm really loving this 'Rouxai' lettuce.  It's so dark and curly.  And now it's starting to show a contrasting neon green at the center.  This is the first year I've planted it, but it will definitely not be the last.  (By the way, the internet pronouncer says it's "rooksie".)

I thought it was rabbits eating my 'Calima' green beans, but now I'm wondering if it's deer.  They're keeping one half of the row pretty well mowed off.

The other half is lovely, tolerates the dry heat quite well, and produces lots of lovely, tender beans.

I don't know what keeps whoever is eating them from going on down the line, but they stop about midway.  The reason I think it might be deer is that they often walk a path across the garden, and they might just be munching on their way to the other side.  And it does seem like bunnies might not keep them mowed off like that.

'Calima' beans are long and thin, which I like for making dry cooked oriental beans with ginger, garlic, and cayenne pepper in sesame oil.  Halved, they also made a nice little mess of one of my favorite simple dishes: green beans and new potatoes boiled with bacon grease.

'Yukon Gold' potatoes and 'Calima' green beans

The potatoes were also tasty seasoned and oven roasted with 'Tender Sweet' carrots and 'All Blue' potatoes.  

The blue potatoes are not very appetizing when cooked.  The skin loses its rich dark purple-black color, and the inside (which doesn't look that great raw) turn kind of gray.  They look bluer in the picture than they actually look IRL, as the kids say online (in real life).  They taste good, but not good enough to make me want to grow them again.  Too bad, because the flowers on the plant are pretty, as are the raw potatoes.  But, 'Yukon Gold' potatoes are creamy and delicious, so I really don't need anything else unless I just want a pretty picture.

'All Blue' and 'Yukon Gold' potatoes, 'Calima' green beans, 

'Tender Sweet' carrots, and 'Babybeat' beets

'All Blue' potato flowers

Things should spark up quickly now with the much needed and much appreciated rain, and the tomatoes might even set fruit with the slightly cooler temperature.  Such a relief.

'Queen Lime' series zinnia - 'Orange Blush'

Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot

This much heat is good for only one gardening task: washing out plastic pots for reuse next year. I get quite wet doing this chore, but I don't care when it's this hot.

The field poppies are looking a little more like the fields in Wizard of Oz.  Honeybees absolutely love these poppies.  They're abuzz all day long, so I don't know how Dorothy and the crew traipsed through the fields unstung.  

The small Persian melon plants are making their way up their cages and looking quite healthy despite the extreme heat and lack of rain.  (I've been watering from time to time, but they're in a spot they don't get as much as the rest of the garden. They do get some shade.)

Potatoes are harvestable size.

'All Blue' potatoes

'Yukon Gold' and 'All Blue' potatoes, 'Calima' green beans, 

'Tender Sweet' carrots, and 'Babybeat' beets

Cabbages have felt the heat for sure.  I was gone another week recently, and things were neglected.  Young cabbage plants obviously needed more attention.

'Brunswick'

Jalapeño peppers are not looking good.  I was hoping for a good crop this year in order to make more jelly.  Not looking promising.

The snack peppers look much better than the jalapeños and are flowering.  

I don't think this is going to be a successful year in the garden.  Much too hot too soon, and so very little rain.  I planted more tomatoes than ever before, hoping to have enough to put up some juice, but it's too hot to even set fruit.  Flowers dry up and fall off.  And if they do set fruit, it's too hot to ripen.  What a bummer.  I think my only hope at this point is for a cooler autumn and a late, late fall frost. 

The roma type tomatoes are doing better than the slicers, but I wonder if that's because they get some shade.  Their foliage is an ugly mess, but I've been told that's just the way they grow.

'German Johnson' slicing tomatoes

'Speckled Roman' roma tomatoes fronted by 'Cardinal' basil

'Speckled Roman'

'Babybeat' beets actually look good and are at the beginning stage for harvest.  They also get some shade.  Beet greens have been eaten up by insects in earlier years, so this year I'm trying to remember to spray neem oil on them.  Not bad so far.  I like to stir fry the greens with slices of roasted beets.

The celery I bought from a nursery this year seems to be coming along nicely.  I don't know what variety it is.  Sadly, it was only labeled "celery".

The pink celery I grew from seed is still very small.  Celery I've grown, no matter the variety, has always been such a slow grower.

Here's Ben's video on growing celery:  Growing Celery from Sowing to Harvest

After harvesting cabbage last year, I didn't bother to pull out what was left of some of the plants, and one of them took off again this spring.  It's now a triple-header, and one head is ready for harvest.  I think I'll leave this fall's plants in the ground overwinter and see if I get a repeat.

overwintered 'Primo Vantage' cabbage

overwintered 'Primo Vantage' cabbage

Unfortunately, I was up north when some things were ready to harvest, including this 'Seaside' spinach.  I'm letting it flower, and I'll try to harvest the seed for an attempt at a fall crop.

'Seaside' spinach

Some of the perennial flowers did better than the vegetables with the poor weather and lack of attention.

Drumstick allium

pink 'Shazam!' and yellow 'South Africa' roses

'Razzle Dazzle'

The forecast doesn't have any milder temperatures in store, but there is some rain showing for next weekend.  I hope it's still there when we get that far.