Friday, July 17, 2020

Midwest Gardening: Heat and Vegetables Mid July 2020


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Here it is the dead of summer and we have been waiting to harvest something other than lettuce, green onions and peas. 
At the beginning of the month we had a huge rain, and then some major heat like much of the country. 

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Dry during the heat we had to water constantly to maintain how huge all the plants are. Here is 4 yellow summer squash plants.



Weekj of July 5th, lots of blossoms and fingerlings that seemed to just stay that way.





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Being so hot, the cherry tomatoes have a bit of yellow leaves. simply from the heat, still no tomatoes, though lots of blossoms.


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On the side of the greenhouse, the tomatoes aren't doing well? But these were the San Marzanos that have been anemic since day one??? We will be taking these off of our seed list next year.



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Week of July 5th...these are the Better Boys! Getting big and healthy, but green still. Some plants simply shut down in too much heat.
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The Pickler pickles have begun to have a few here and there!

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The bush pickles are FULL of blossoms---ready to explode.



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The other side of the bedspring are Burpless and Chicago ....a bit of yellowing, but lots of blossoms. 





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On the north side we have sunflowers between the trellises holding the pole beans, Kentucky wonder. Lots of vines, when they start we will have tons of beans.


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Beans on the trellis, and sunflowers between.


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The Calendula are blooming here and there in the garden to encourage pollinators.

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All the winter squash plant varieties, seem to be doing fine.
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The peas are bearing here and there, but.  they are huge quickly but still tender and very tasty! I planted them in the shade of a table...so they don't have full sun all the time.



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The week of the 5th...a few cucumbers more than here, peas, zucchini, and onions. 

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The green onions are fine in the railing pots. 

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Herbs are basically frying on the porch, I picked after these photos. 
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Lettuce keeps coming on the porch, on the railing pots and the one bed, which I need to reseed soon. After the heat.


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We've had a few cucumbers from the pot on the porch



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This is a Better Boy ....really going nuts! 

After the Storm--July 16th,  finally some notable produce.

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We had 3-5" of rain yesterday.  Harvesting TIP: This morning Hubby went and picked so the tomatoes wouldn't split.


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These are all Early Girls, nice and firm and full bodied---we are having pasta tonight with all this fresh produce.


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And, Cucumbers explode in one day now...with the heat and the rain. Crazy, so fresh Danish Pickles, recipe HERE will also be on the Menu.

I wonder what will explode tomorrow? 

How is your garden doing in the HEAT??










Monday, July 13, 2020

Midwest Gardening: Storms, Wind, and Trees, Oh MY!

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Hi, All. 

After two weeks of dry hot weather and two days after the last post, we had a nasty storm roar through here with lots of wind and 4-5" of rain.

Everyone is safe and sound except for our Hawthorn(Buckthorn) Tree which lost a thick old limb.

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It missed our car, the garage roof and pretty much fell in one piece. 

We were lucky the lawn debris truck came along while we were chopping it up and the driver helped us drag the cut pieces to the hopper. We have one more bin to be picked up next week. He said there was a lot of damage in our development, so I guess we were just lucky!



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The upper branches supported the trunk, and even the fence was only dinged a bit. Now this area will get more sun...which is a plus. You have to look at the bright side of things.

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But my Hollyhocks. YIKES. The poles held but the foam ties I had around them were ripped off and the flowers were basically flattened. I tied them up again with rope and only lost the tops of three. They seem to be okay now. I then spent 3 more hours tying up and supporting all our vegetables and flowers.  We lost a few branches on tomatoes, and three big pots were blown over??? but that's about it for serious damage.

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Our yellow squash plants were rearranged and they are out across the patio now, and producing 3-4 small squash a day now. The four plants in here are very vigorous. 

Please ignore the foggy spots on the photos---not ghosts or spirits, but raindrops, LOL. Honest---scared myself when I looked at them, then I remember we had a 'sun-der" storm while I was taking photos. 

HUGS, hope all is well for you and yours! 


Thank you for any and all comments.
Finally I am able to reply to comments by using Chrome. So all you Mac users who have upgraded to Catalina---this might help the glitches on Safari  and Blogger!