Garden Update

Whew! It has gotten hot here! Evening is really the only tolerable time to try to get things done in the garden. Yesterday evening, Jeff and I weeded, staked some peppers and tied up some tomatoes.

The peppers flourish in the hot weather. This picture shows many of this year's pepper plants. In the upper left hand corner you can see some of the sunflowers and green beans.

Many plants are already loaded with peppers. The jalapenos and mariachi are ready for light picking. There are very heavy crops coming on the cherry bomb plants in particular. They are always good producers. Other varieties are flowering, setting fruits and coming along well too. It should be a nice, long, staggered harvest. Here are some cayenne peppers that should begin turning red soon.

We need to try to keep everything evenly watered and hope that the plants don't get sun burned too much. If we can get the green tomatoes to maturity, it will be a good crop. Here are some cute pear tomatoes we'll have in salads. I can't remember if they are going to turn yellow or red!

These are green zebra. I am never sure how to tell when they are ripe as they stay green! They are very pretty. Edited to add: Oops! This is actually Red Lightning which is next to the Green Zebra plant. Very confusing, but this variety will eventually turn a streaky yellow and red color.

Here are a lot of cherry tomatoes. The first ripe ones of the season were sooo sweet and good! Most will be red, but we have one plant that is yellow and two that are 'white'.

Here is one of the Asian eggplants.

Here are some plum tomato plants, the zucchini and tomatillos. The zucchini plants are looking a little beaten just from us reaching into them to pick every day.

The rows of sunflowers I sowed this year have quite a ways to go yet, but this was a volunteer we managed to avoid tilling in the spring. The bees are loving it.

I watched a documentary food show on Netflix streaming video this past weekend called Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution and found it quite interesting. I am already sold on organic though, so I was in agreement with the film and was happy to see what some of the French are doing about the problems. While watching the Tour de France this year, I'm looking at those vineyards they bike by in a new light since seeing the film...