It’s mid July and that means two things: it’s seventh-circle-of-hell hot and it’s time for Garden 2.0!
The most wonderful things to come out of the garden this last month were the figs. No question. We got our first real crop from our small fig tree and it was fabulous. This happened more than once:
But sadly, it was short-lived. Backyard fig season was over within 2-3 weeks.
Also extremely wonderful: San Marzano tomatoes. I have 3 quarts of pizza sauce in the freezer and fridge. 12 cups! Do you know how many tomatoes it takes to make 12 cups of pizza sauce? I stopped counting… but it was a crazy bunch.
Everything else is barely creeping along, thanks to being at the mercy of me and my water hose. We’ve had one small sprinkling of rain in the last 6 weeks. If you’ve got a spare rainy day just lying around, I’ll take it!
Still Alive
Eggplant, it’s a survivor. I don’t know what it was about that plant. It only recently started growing after being in the ground and 4-inches tall for ~4 months. But we’ve gotten our first flowers and should see our first eggplant soon.
Red and Yellow Bell Peppers are doing fabulously. The yellow bell pepper is especially happy after the cantaloupe vine was trimmed back off the netting – more sunlight!
Jalapeno – moved it to the prime position previously occupied by the 3-year-old serrano “tree.” It’s is much happier now.
Strawberries – done producing for the year but now comes the tricky part: keeping them alive during nearly-triple-digits and drought.
Red grape – Nothing this year so far.
Basil – I am temporarily over pesto and caprese everything. I aggressively cut back the basil so I have a bit of a reprieve.
In
Tomatoes! A new San Marzano and a new mystery tomato plant. I can tell it’s not a vining plant, but that’s about it. I also started some clippings in a glass of water to root and those will go in the ground shortly. Long live summer tomato sauce!
Green beans – the spring plants got spindly and crispy so I pulled them and am planting the rest of the seeds in the ground this weekend.
Butternut squash – ’tis the season!
In Limbo
2 San Marzano and the Juliet tomatoes were aggressively pruned… and now look aggressively almost dead. They might not make it. But I’ll deal with the month-long lull between tomato crops if it means my back yard is temporarily free of those disgusting leaf-footed stink bugs. They are my nemesis. Even more so now that one tried to fly into my mouth. Luckily, my lips were pursed in preparation of releasing a very angry “Mommy word” and no damage was done to either party.
Out
Tomatillos – I will never even try again. The plants are gigantic and took over far more valuable garden real estate than they produced tomatillos. Never again.
Cantaloupe – produced a handful of cantaloupe and then died.
Serrano – after 3 years, we pulled the serrano in favor of getting the more-desirable jalapeno more light. Because you know what makes a better stuffed pepper? Jalapenos.