We’ve had some extremely hot and humid weather for a while now, along with a lot of rainfall. The plants are thriving, and the day-to-day changes are really noticeable.

The tops of the red onions flopped over last week, with a little help from yours truly. These onions were done, done, done, and they came in yesterday morning. The harvest was about half of the yield of the New York Early yellows the week before, which makes sense for there was only one bed of the Rossa di Milano Red Onions.

We’re getting plenty of cucumbers, though they seem slower than previous years. Much summer squash has been eaten. The green beans have taken a pause, but the plants are beginning to flower again, so there may be more coming. The strawberries are also flowering again, and have started developing many new fruits. We’ll be into Phase II of the strawb harvest next week. 

There are tons of beautiful tomatoes, but the darn things stubbornly remain green!

We’ve got one big pumpkin growing, and one small one. And finally the Waltham Butternut squash has started producing. They’ll become large very quickly now.

Now that the onions are out, all three of those beds have been turned over, amended and reset for the fall crops of cauliflower, broccoli and more Brussels sprouts. The original broccoli and cauliflower beds were replanted directly with seeds several weeks ago, and they’re doing well. If all of the plants in place make it to a fall harvest, we’ll end up with more brassica than ever, despite the failure of the early cauliflower and broccoli seedlings.

Almost forgot- we also harvested the cabbages planted in the spring! There are two new cabbage sharing space with cauliflower- they should be ready in late October, or thereabouts.

So onwards the season goes. We’re coming up on mid-August, and while there is plenty of summer left, the early signs of fall are there. Trees are starting to give up some of their green, and gold and brown colors are creeping in on the edges of the fields. We should be heading back into a cycle of less humid warm days and cool nights. Not only is that more comfortable weather, but gardens seem to like it, too.

If I remember, next week we’ll have something on the flowers that were grown this year. There have been successes. Thanks for stopping by!