Took a deep breath and went into the garden this morning...
I was going to clean this pigsty of a house today, but it looks like now I have other plans.
Salsa, anyone?
Snapped this one last night while out running the kids to music lessons, check out the time!
Just stupid hot, time to break out the old Redneck Heat Detector, one of my favorite web images :)
Today's harvest brings me over the 100 lb mark finally! With no peas, carrots or garlic this year and a short bean run I was worried that I'd reach that mark at all! I don't even want to speculate on what the end of summer total will be since every day I get tomatoes with the heat and disease and drought is a bonus day to me.
Interesting difference to this year's garden, no water! I can't quite believe it myself, but since I wasn't feeling so into gardening this year I decided to try the lazy approach and see if the plants would just "toughen up". In other years, I'm out there batting mosquitoes and watering almost every day but I haven't watered yet this year, and it's not raining either - our grass is so dry we haven't mowed in 3 weeks! No soil amendments, just throw away the blossom end rot veggies and shrug "whatever", when the wind blows the tomatoes down they stay down, too lazy this summer. Yet nice tomatoes are still there, and as a matter of fact none of them are cracked like usual years. Interesting.
Holy heck! 100 pounds already? And I was all like "Damn, 4 pounds of beans, so much!" But I'd love to have harvests like yours--I love making salsa!
ReplyDeleteKenneth, this year I did turnips and that really helped with the weight LOL!
DeleteWe have some tomatoes that seem to have white spots where they have been in the sun too much but that is just one variety the other doesn't have it. I haven't watered and just wait on the occasional shower. No ripe tomatoes yet but someday!
ReplyDeleteSunnybrook, I'm glad it looks like you are going to have success with the tomatoes - this year every tomato we can get out of this awful weather will be victory!
DeleteSomething that you may want to consider for your "whatever" garden. I noticed one year when I had two separate tomato gardens that the garden that I didn't weed (although it was mostly grass) the tomatoes didn't seem to dry up as quickly as the weeded garden did. I would have thought that the grass around the unweeded plants would just suck up all the moisture or nutrients or whatever, but they must have helped keep them cooler and maybe even retain moisture. And I'm sure the fact that it wasn't just black dirt sucking up the heat helped.
ReplyDeleteCR, I have tomatoes in 2 different areas of the yard but both are in raised beds with black dirt LOL, but there are so many tomato plants in the beds that the sun can't reach the dirt LOL
DeleteI've heard a lot of things about dry grown tomatoes. . . so maybe you're on to something. Some years are just lazier than others -- maybe you'll have a great winter!
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's what I need to do since we are under water restrictions. Whatever survives, survives...
ReplyDeleteI'm an over-waterer, and my tomatoes don't have a real strong flavor or sweetness. I need to stop watering at every sign of wilt, as that can also be a sign of over-watering. It's just that I like to look at great expanses of green so I give the garden a good soaking every other day through the summer. We have sandy soil that dries out so fast, but maybe if I just closed my eyes to the wilting veggies, I could start with every three days, then work my way up to once a week? I know the garden would adjust to it, but can I?
ReplyDeleteYes please, to the salsa. My husband is an over-waterer too and our plants aren't doing well because we've had a ton of rain and the husband still goes around and waters everything. ACK!
ReplyDeleteSo far this year we've had a huge harvest of about 8 strawberries!
I've noticed in recent years that I don't have tomato diseases if I don't water. I just deep mulch when planting and let Ma Nature take over. I was gone the entire month of June. My garden certainly didn't need me.....it's shaping up to be my best ever---despite no germination on the carrots and LOUSY garlic this year.
ReplyDeleteI know, I know, I know. Let a garden "run wild" and you get as much harvest out of it as the one you spend 18 hours a day in. So why is it that we drive ourselves mentally/emotionally crazy worrying about our gardens and just about kill ourselves physically trying to keep up with them? Huh??
ReplyDeleteHey, Sue . . . I've read that tomatoes are susceptible to all kinds of diseases when watered from above. Okay, but what about rain? Maybe that's why in big commercial fields of tomatoes you see all of the plants holding little umbrellas. Hahahahaha!
Smartypants, Mama Pea!
Delete:D
A feast ,that's what all those nummy fresh veggies look like
ReplyDeleteMmm... salsa.. I've got the peppers but no tomatoes yet. I don't usually water my tomatoes but this year I have. I have broken out the sprinkler twice for the tomatoes and peppers. Of course, we have had only an inch of rain in the past 2 months. But amazingly enough, everything but the potatoes are looking good.
ReplyDeleteWe were still at 100 last night at 630. I'm definitely ready for some cooler weather!
Judy
Haha..LOVE the redneck heat detector. Could have used that last week in th 107 degree heat when our air conditioner broke!
ReplyDeleteAll those summer veggies are a beautiful sight! Glad to see that your garden is still tossing food your way, in spite of this year's challenges. Hoping that we all get a just enough of the right kind of rain ...
ReplyDeleteSome fresh salsa sounds great. Everything here is stuggling as we face the heatwave, too. Finally a break today, thank goodness. But still no rain.
ReplyDeleteHave enjoyed catching up on your blog posts today, too!