California - What are you doing this month?

Audrey,  Here are your Snow Fairy tomatoes:
Yes, they have gotten away from me but they are doing so well! Thank you for the seeds. Back on 4-28-15:
The mini bell has tiny fruit and the Malabar spinach is alive but still only an inch or so tall. The other summer spinach will be planted in the cucumber bed this week. That box just recently got sun.

The snow fairy tomatoes look nice.

How do you do with your malabar spinach, Audrey? I grew some last year, but they grew very oddly compared to what I've seen. Pretty short, not vining much at all, but leaves packed very densely one on top of the other, like a tight stack of pinwheels.

Marc, I beat you!  106*F today.    It's 11 PM and still 90*F.  I couldn't go out to water until 7 PM.  Cooling trend Tuesday-Thursday in the 90s.  Then, back up into the 100s.  I may have lost 3 squares of Rattlesnake beans with their crispy leaves.  More sheers tomorrow.

Here are 7 varieties of tomatoes I picked today.  Yes, the San Marzano has BER but it wanted to get in the photo shoot.  The one with the name hidden is Basrawya from Iraq.  I plan to have part of each one for breakfast to record their different flavors.  

There are other tomato varieties but they haven't turned red/pink.  The Cherokee Purple has green shoulder and is starting to blush.  I pulled the white Spanish onions today.  The ones I trimmed the seed pods fleshed out but the ones I let the seed pods get big look like giant spring onions.  I learned something this year!  Also harvest 9 very nice Sanderson garlic (store bought 2013).  garlic and onions are drying except for the skinny onions, which I will chop and dehydrate tomorrow.  Ken got the wood dehydrator box down for me for summer air drying.  Eggplants have tiny fruit.  Peppers are doing great in their shade house.
Recognize the frame?  It does double duty.

The flowers in front with 2-3" of wood chips are surviving pretty well with watering 2X week.  My goal is to not have to sneak in a midnight watering with the hose on an off day.

The water cop is on patrol.  http://www.kmph.com/story/29300973/most-homeowners-observing-fresnos-watering-rules

Our front lawn is rather green except for some fungal spots.  Husband cuts it high, and we water twice a week per local ordinance, 10 minutes per day in 5 minute bursts, for a total of 20 minutes.  I've sprayed it with compost tea, raw milk and molasses.  We are due for that knock on the front door.  The front flower beds are covered with chips, dead leaves or chop-and-drop prunings.

I printed out a Joann's coupon and bought several yards of white muslin for more veggie shades.  The next 6 days are expected to be in the 100s.

Yay!!!!  You got your tomatoes to grow this year, they're beautiful too.  Nice work.

My garden is really doing well this year.  Each of them are performing nicely.  I've harvested 4 or 5 types of squash (all zucchini related).  My spaghetti squash has 12+ large fruit growing on just one plant and I have 3 or 4 spread around the yard.  

We really enjoyed our raspberries but they're finished so I cut out the old canes yesterday.  I have a thornless, bush type that I got from home depot.  I need to dig out the babies and see who wants them around here.  

I have two personal sized watermelon fruit growing.  Next crop of lettuce will be planted this weekend.  I'm going to replace one of my large broken flower window boxes that is broken with 3, 2 foot window boxes with lettuce once they get started growing.  

The highest priority this weekend is to get my watering system going for my raised beds in the back and my flower pots on the front patio.  Whew!  I'm tired already!!!

Oh... and my efforts this winter to deepen the mulch cover on the in ground gardens is paying off.  So far I'm only having to water once a week with no mid-day wilting even in this awful heat.

Only once a week? That's outstanding.

sanderson wrote:Marc, I beat you!  106*F today.    It's 11 PM and still 90*F.  I couldn't go out to water until 7 PM.  Cooling trend Tuesday-Thursday in the 90s.  Then, back up into the 100s.

Yecch! You can have it!

Luckily it cooled off a bit today. Thank goodness as we are having to paint our two fairly big decks, and a few days back I walked on one barefoot for hardly any time and it was so hot it kinda burned my foot and made it sore afterward. It's impossible to walk on, on hot days.

 I may have lost 3 squares of Rattlesnake beans with their crispy leaves.  More sheers tomorrow.

I'm sorry to hear that. I lost almost all my beans in one of my gardens last year to a single hot day. Scorched the daylights out of them and even when they produced new green leaves, they just seemed busted and produced nothing. It seems to me that beans are quite vulnerable to especially hot days. Kind of surprising considering how otherwise vigorous they seem. Sounds like sheers are a very good idea. One day I have to follow up on getting some of my own going.

P.S.: Seven kinds of tomatoes! You're coming back this year off your bad tomato year with a vengeance! Two canning types I see ... do you can?

This will be my first summer canning.   I need to freeze them until I have enough so I will hop on over to the canning topics and check out how to prep them.  I just want to make an all-purpose chunky tomato with onion, garlic, peppers and spices.  I just finished drying the onions and garlic, and the peppers are coming along.  Maybe I can make some hot salsa if the tomatoes keep producing. I also have an Amish paste. The Basraywa was rather neutral with think skin. Ken is waiting for the Beefsteaks and I'm waiting for the Black Krim. There are other varieties so I am very happy this summer.

I got all the covers up but the largest one.  It's probably a 2-person job.  I wrapped the white buckets with aluminum foil.  I'm going to Sac tomorrow until Monday to visit kiddies so I hope Ken can properly water them.  It's going to be in the 100s while I'm gone.

I have squash bugs that popped up this week.  So every time I'm out in the yard I'm picking them off and putting them in a jar of water.  They don't bite or sting so you just pluck them off and dispense with them.  I only found one leaf that had eggs on it - I'm sure there must be more but I haven't found them.  Same spot that had them last year so I'm sure they over wintered.  ONly one squash plant has them though there are several more around it.  

Hot, hot, HOTTTTT!!!!!  Ick.  That is all.

To think it is only 103*F right now in Fresno. We still have the 109-110 to get to. I walked out bare foot a minute ago and the brick patio hurt my feet! Dummy. They are a little tender now. I'm still getting ready to get out of town and I need to modify one of the shade covers and put up the other.

Time for conscientious pet owners to remember that pets can burn their feet too, and be careful when putting them out on sunny pavement or walking them on sideways on hot summer days.

103 eh? Serious but not fatal.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:
My garden is really doing well this year.  Each of them are performing nicely.  I've harvested 4 or 5 types of squash (all zucchini related).  My spaghetti squash has 12+ large fruit growing on just one plant and I have 3 or 4 spread around the yard.  

...

Oh... and my efforts this winter to deepen the mulch cover on the in ground gardens is paying off.  So far I'm only having to water once a week with no mid-day wilting even in this awful heat.

Glad to hear things are going so well for you, Audrey.

That mulching biz is almost always such a great idea. I've gotta keep doing more of that every year.

Marc, It was only 103 but humid!  15 minute trips outside and each time I was dripping when I came back inside.  I'm in Sac right now and the Delta breeze at night is cold!  But it will heat up again.  Quite a mood swing for son's plants.

Gosh, I didn't realize you guys got that hot in Oregon and northern CA. That's brutal! A cooling trend in the nineties?! Gruesome.

CC

We went from highs of 108 to a nightly low of 57 in about a week. Poor plants have no idea what on earth is going on, I'm sure ...

sanderson -- I hate humidity! The tropics are beautiful, and that's where I grew up, but I'd never want to live there again.

Kicking myself for not getting the drip irrigation finished a week ago - procrastination is not your friend when it comes to the summer!!!!  *deep sigh*

I'm having to hand water my pots on the patio and the SFG table tops every day which is time consuming and HOT!!!  

Whining completed.

Is it fall yet?!

I was doing that for hours a day last year, so your whining is not accepted.

However, your calling me a fool for doing so instead of putting in a watering system would be fair.

I'm finally back home after 4 days visiting kiddies. I didn't know what I should do first, kiss husband, give love to the cat or or talk to all my plants. Don't worry I did the right thing . . . . reassured the cat with love. JK Found 2 cantaloup and a cucumber! I have never had such beautiful cucumber leaves! BTE new flower bed doing good. All of the leaves in the ramial areas are gone. Ground worms?

Let's hope so!

Really big ants?

All I can say is that it is really hot here. It's all I can do to water, peak under the shade cloths and run back inside. The plants are suffering. My back lawn is all but dead and it hurts to walk barefoot on it, one of my favorite summer pleasures. Grumble, grumble. I should be able to make some Annie's Salsa tomorrow with my tomatoes, peppers, onion and garlic. If I understand correctly, it only requires a water bath. Third summer and I can finally can something!

It's miserably hot up here too.  I harvested first thing this morning and then hid inside all day except to change the sprinkler.  

yuck!

It's miserably hot here in Fresno.  106*F Tuesday and 107*F today, Wednesday.  Then we have a nice drop to 100*F for the next 9 days.  I've been sewing some shade sails for the back yard.  I bought a new sewing machine about 5 years ago after a long, long relationship with my old Singer portable.  It took me an hour to load 2 bobbins and figure out how to put one in.  I finally went to the maintenance section and lo and behold, I had it in within a couple of minutes.  Dummy.  

We finally got one 8' x 12' up and almost done with the 2nd one.  I used 1/2" grommets from Home Depot.  $10 for a kit with 24 sets and all the little tools.  The aluminum foil I wrapped around the 5-gallon buckets for the tomatoes has worked keeping the Mix cooler.  It's just so unbelievably hot outside to get anything done.  I water and pick the produce.  That's about all I can tolerate.  I hope with the cooler weather I can get more done later this week.

I hope to can my first batch of diced tomatoes tomorrow.  I have the tools.  Now to get the drive!

I haven't heard from anyone for a while.  What are you up to?

Audrey, Any rain up there? All I see here is constant lightening followed by thunder.

We actually had quite a bit (especially for summer).  I've had my head down working and trying to stay cool, so I missed your post.  The lightning was almost all night and started a lot of little fires up in the mountains and around here.  They will be watching for at least 3 weeks as they can just smolder and then suddenly break out later. 

We had our first potimarron squash this week and our first spaghetti squash last week.  Zucchini is taking over the world and cukes are producing.  All's well with my world, LOL!  How about you?