Picked myself a salad
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...n/photo-12.jpg

It's been a disappointing year. I know it's not over yet... but, it feels like it.

Count so far:
Green Peppers: 2, barely (only 2 1/2 on the plants right now)
Tomatoes: 6 small
Cucumbers: 9 (best plant of the year)
Broccoli: ~0.5-0.75 lbs
Cauliflower: 0
Celery: 2 dozen stalks. I cut off pieces when I want some.
Lettuce (Iceberg & Romaine): 2 'heads'?
Carrots: 3
Watermelon: one TINY one, one 4.5lb, that's it for em this year, they both split, so I had to pull them. :(

It's just been ridiculously hot here. It's back in the upper 90s this week.

I thought vegetables liked heat?

celery, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce are cool weather plants. plus there hasn't been a lot of rain. watering daily keeps em alive, but they really need rain to grow.

Heat: Some like it, some don't.
Lettuce turns bitter and bolts. It's a winter crop for me.
Broccoli and carrots also.
Peppers love heat. Cucumbers as well, as long as they have water.

Tomato plants like heat, but the blooms don't pollinate when it gets above 90 degrees. It's kind of surprising, but in Texas we have a short spring season for growing tomatoes. Get them out after frost, but in time for a harvest before the heat sets in. Mine got a late start, and I've had two large tomatoes and a dozen cherries, from 20+ plants.

I'm going to whine now. My garden this year has been a parade of the pests.
Squash vine borers killed the pumpkins.
Squash bugs (stink bug) killed the neighboring squash, then moved to the cucumbers. I have squished probably 5,000 of them in the last couple weeks. I was getting 2+ dozen cukes a week before that, but now they're all dead.
Stink bugs making my tomatoes rotten, horn worms eating holes in them.
Roly-poly bugs eat all the little sprouts as they come up.
Earwigs in the corn.
Grasshoppers everywhere. I've been letting the chickens out more, now that's solved. :D
The pole beans got a mosaic virus and failed.
The unusual heat cut short the lettuce and carrot season.

There's always next year... ;)

Calling the season done.

I've pulled 1/2 a pepper since last post and a carrot. There two more carrots in the grouns, and I actually have two watermelons on the vines, but they haven't changed in weeks. Things got very dry here, I went away for a week, and lost what was left of my broccoli, and some other plants, and as of yesterday, we were still seeing 90 degree weather (high 70s today and throughout the weekend finally). Bad year, but there's always next year, and I plan on going pretty big.

I look forward to seeing the new setup. :)

One way to reduce the numbers of squash bugs is to catch and destroy the overwintered squash bugs (and their eggs) when they first show up on your plants in the spring as this greatly slows down their population build up and the numbers of bugs later on in the season. Ditto for potato beetles on potatoes. I'm seeing the amount of disease and pest problems on my garden drop as I build up the levels of micronutrients in the soil, (and also on me as I eat the plants grown on this soil, see truehealth.org for this microelement effect on human health). The wild type cherry tomatoes (Matt's Wild Cherry) will set fruit even in the hottest weather and they prolifically self-sow, so I have been eating these cherry tomatoes from mid-May until whenever the first frost arrives even though I never planted a one.

Now that it is cooling off, I am seeing self-sown seedlings of lettuce, carrots, parsnips, komatsuna, arugula, radishes, and kale popping up everywhere in the garden. Also potatoes, garlic, onions, and wild garlic are coming up from leftover tubers and bulbs. In addition I have been planting lettuce, radishes, cabbages, collards, broccoli, arugula, corn salad, and other cool season plants. Also I have planted some cool tolerant tomatoes, that (along with the potatoes) will overwinter under cold frames for late fall/early winter harvest.

Thanks! Matt's Wild Cherry was already on my try-out list. Now it's at the top of the list.

Give it lots of room as they will overwealm a typical tomato cage. They like to climb and can easily run more than 12 feet during the growing season. They aren't bothered by the usual tomato leaf diseases or by hornworms and rarely show the fruit splitting problem seen in many cherry tomatoes. As they self-seed through your garden you'll find occasional plants producing pink tomatoes and yellow tomatoes.