I haven't been doing a good job keeping up with this. The only good excuse I have is that it's high garden harvest time and that's what I've been doing in my free time. The garden, and everyone else's gardens nearby is actually about 3 weeks behind because of the cooler summer we've had. There's been no blast of heat in the 90s or 100s at any point. It actually was 45 degrees this morning when I left for work.
These cool temps make some things better and others worse. Tomatoes and peppers are well behind, but some of the greenery crops are doing great, as well as cucumbers. I have never had so many, nor have I had this many squash of all types. They are vining out, and I have several types in abundance - yellow, zucchini, hubbard, patty pan, acorn, pumpkin, and butternut. I have promptly cut a lot of the cucumbers into spears and pickled them, as well as sticking some in the sour fermenting crock. I also started a 3 heads of cabbage batch of sauerkraut that fits neatly in a half gallon jar.
A lot of tomatoes, much more than usual, had blossom end rot and had to get thrown out. I started to get some of these at the beginning of August and only within the past three or four days am I getting rot-free, huge san marzanos. Also in the past few days the cherokee purple beefsteak variety has finally ripened a couple of specimens, which taste amazing. I've had sun gold cherry tomatoes coming out of my ears since the beginning of the month. They have a tendency to split when overripe, however.
The poplar tree in the backyard is starting to drop a couple of leaves. I will write more soon.
