Some cherry type tomatoes near the end of my driveway. You can see they are growing like weeds!



I love this picture. Looking down from the top gardens to the driveway side of my yard. You can see my sweet little dog Lily on her tieout enjoying the day in the garden.

You can see the setup of the garden as you can see some of the driveway pots plus see those side yard tomato beds.

Great photo Rita! Let's us get a better picture of your yard and gardens, and of course, sweet Lily!

I have been weeding and weeding and weeding. So much grass I'll never catch up. Trying to lay weed barrier, whether it be paper, cardboard or cloth down and mulch but I can't seem to stay ahead. It's so hot we can only work a few hours every day.

My tomatoes are coming in now. Early, small cherries and salad tomatoes and some nice slicers from the GH. We are enjoying BLT's every day so far. I'm sure we'll get sick of them soon. NOT!

We need rain!!

The weeds never seem to completely go away.

Newyorkrita said:The weeds never seem to completely go away.

Isn't THAT the truth !!

Today I bought 100 ft of 1/2 inch mainline to set up my drip irrigation. I have short pieces of old line, patched together with connecters that I used a few years ago. That system was set up by my neighbor after I had planted, and it will provide me with short pieces when I need them, but it seemed better to just start with a new line. I bought a tool for punching holes, and some hole plugs for when I need to eliminate a line, and I have valves and various connectors, leftover doo-dads, etc. The farm store doesn't carry the flat drip tape, so I went to 2 other places expecting to find it. Nope. None in our small town. Then my neighbor gave me a partial roll of what he buys for his market garden. Originally it had 7,000 ft on it! He says there is plenty left for my garden! I planned to put it together this evening, but decided to wait and do it in the morning when it's cool and I have more energy. Drip systems save a lot of water, and I won't have to be dragging so many hoses around.

This morning I found a green tomato that is almost golf ball size! Maybe there are more?

I have been planting seeds to see how fast they germinate. Now that we have had a few days in the 80's (so unusual) things are germinating more quickly. The green beans I planted on the 7th germinated today, the 17th. I planted some the first of May and they took over two weeks to germinate. It was cold and rainy. The beans I stated in the garage look pathetic. I won't waste time or effort on planting them in the garage again. Same with spinach. Broc, peas, lettuce are different. Even the lettuce gets us a harvest weeks earlier if planted out as seedlings. But I have planted more to mature when the first batch finishes. I should have tried this years ago.

Yup the beans want warm soil and catch up quickly if you wait for some heat.

We finally had a second day in a row without rain, so I was able to weed the garden. My parsnips haven't come up yet, hope they do, but it's been a while. Maybe they don't like all this rain we've been getting.

I have been weeding and cleaning up all day but don't feel like I have made much progress.

I need to sift a garden cart full of dirt I dug out from the lawn where we step down to it from the deck. Sand, gravel, laid brick. Also dug up an area where weeds had taken over from asparagus that died so need to sift weeds out of that. I need to cover the fish carcasses I buried in the garden in various places (also in raised beds) with more soil. Woody got into one of them. Bad Dog.

Also need a trip to the saw mill to get more chips to set up a new path that I dug up to free from weeds. Never ending story, indeed. But while the thermometer says 64 in the shade, it has to be 80 where I will be working so I will stay inside for a bit. Drink lots of water and read. My MIL leaves around 3 (flying back to Fairbanks) so I may give it a go then. Damien is at a bank meeting tonight so I will have a good 3-4 hours to work. Hoping a breeze kicks up.

Heat index at 3:00 PM was 104F, Mary. I would think 80 would feel like paradise right now. This is our coolest summer month!

The Beefmaster and Beefsteak varieties of tomatoes have finially started to set. About time I say, they are way behind others in the garden on production. I have had Beefmaster before and it is a nice tomato, very tasty but of course a late variety. Nice size on them though. I know I have had that Beefsteak variety years ago but I don't really remember much about them except your typical beefsteak types.

Lemon Boys, Sunrays and Jubilee varieties (all yellow or gold tomatos) have nice fruit set but the Carolina Golds and the Juanne Flamme have nothing set!

I know one thing, Ken, you will never have to worry about me "dropping in" for a visit!!

drdawg said:Heat index at 3:00 PM was 104F, Mary. I would think 80 would feel like paradise right now. This is our coolest summer month!

Too hot for me! So sorry you have to put up with it.

Not bad dawg, we are looking at a week of triple digits with no rain. Heat index today 106. I can handle the heat but I wish you folks would not hog all the rain. My roasting ears are roasting in the field.

It's quite pleasant here today, middle 70's, an improvement over yesterday's 85. Still hot to work in the midday sun.

I need a dog who will bark at the deer and keep them out of my garden. We chased 2 out this morning, and just now there was a doe grazing near our shop. I chased her away but she was reluctant to leave. I think she has babies parked nearby. She is healthy looking but thin enough that I could see her ribs. I did discover the roosting places of our barn owls when she ran into a small grove of trees.

Part of the drip irrigation system is laid out, not operational yet. My neighbor said he would come over this afternoon to help me. I ran out of drip tape, only needed another 40 ft, plus maybe a couple of t's or valves installed. He is good at putting all that stuff together, and I am a novice.

We are now getting that hit-and-miss rain, farmer. I was 1/4 mile from the house at noon, and it rained like cats and dogs. When I got home, not a drop had fallen. My wife said it got dark and got windy and then.........nothing. You know how that is. Typical.

Karen, you can drop in anytime but you probably wouldn't want to do that from June through September. Some of June can be wonderful and September can be OK, at least with cooler nights, but July and August are generally brutal. I have lived in the south all of my 72 years and I guess if someone can be used to it, I am. I just have to be a lot more careful now than when I was younger. I have to pace myself, do most outside work in the morning and very late afternoon, make myself come in more frequently, and make myself drink water. I have never been a water drinker.

So sorry, Ken!!! I was not born for the heat and just can't imagine living with those temps. Of course we get the same comments about our winters, and I think nothing of it, lol. We stay in in the winter, and you do the same in summer. We get out, but as you say, we are careful when it's icy and it's snowing like crazy. At least you can't slip and break your hip on the heat!!!

Our temps are barely hitting the low 70s, never mind 80s, 90s, or higher! And, although it sounds crazy even to me, the low 70s seem hot right now... Nights are still in the high 40s and low 50s -- if this keeps up (which it did last year) the tomatoes are going to be very slow to ripen! One thing for sure -- I wouldn't be getting much done if the temp here was mid 80s and higher!!

Speaking of tomatoes -- I finally got my plants put out today Grew really well for me this year, almost all of them have nice straight, sturdy stalks; the only real exception are the San Marzano Redorta, which are just kind of weak and puny looking next to the others. Time will tell how they do in the long run! Tomorrow I'll wrap plastic around the cages to help keep some warmth in for the plants; I was nearly as late planting them last year and didn't do the plastic because I figured it was pretty much summer and they didn't need it, but when the weather stayed so cool I was really wishing I had. If things do turn around I can always take it off!

Yesterday I dug my blueberry plants out and put them in pots. I made a mix using coir, peat, compost, a small amount of potting soil, and Perlite, and thought I had plenty for the 5 big pots I bought a while back; apparently those pots were quite a bit bigger than they seemed, though, because I only had enough mix to fill 3 of the 5 So I stuck the two scrawniest plants in smaller nursery pots, until I can get more of the stuff for the potting mix. It's always something!!

Sandy, whatever helps the tomatoes to stay warm and grow. Of course I have had my tomatoes in ground for a long time already and this year I was a week later putting them out than I was last year.