<p>Ya the herbs are doing great. The ones that like poor soil anyway. The tarragon looks a little flea bitten.</p>
<p>Golden Jubilee tomato plant has 5 immature fruit that looked healthy, but this week the plant has been invaded by little white bugs that look like minuture grains of rice. I thought that they were whiteflies but they don’t move at all when I handle the leaves. The Black Krim tomato was planted at the same time as the Golden Jubilee but has only 1 small green fruit thus far. Cherry Tomato seedlings are quite happy now that they’ve been transplanted.</p>
<p>Topnotch yellow wax bean has been a dud, while Lima bean plants are thriving, as are the Okra. No Sugar Snap Pea pods yet. Fairy Tale eggplant seeds took forever to germinate and are now [slowly] just starting to get bigger. I’ve got a forest of Italian Broad Leaf Basil. Saw the first blossoms on the gold zucchini yesterday and plan to fry the flowers for dinner tonight.</p>
<p>Got my first yellow cherry tomatoes last weekend. Getting a handful every 3-4 days. Had terrible wind damage to the plants yesterday and Wednesday. (45+ mph gusts just whipsawed the plants back & forth, breaking branches and knocking fruit off–especially on the cherry tomato since the plant is on the sprawling, gangly side.)</p>
<p>Both the 2 Better Boy varietals and one of the 2 the Black Truffle hybrid have large (4-6 oz size) green tomatoes which will, I hope, ripen soon. The other Black Truffle had what looked like curly top virus, but may have actually been a psylid infestation. Most of its new leaves are no longer severely distorted, but it’s not blooming much and has only set 1 fruit.</p>
<p>Picked 3 Asian eggplants last night and plan on making stir-fried Schezuan eggplant with either tofu or shrimp for dinner tonight.</p>
<p>Lettuce is done for. Bolted due to heat. I have a second planting growing but I’m not hopeful it’ll do much.</p>
<p>Have 2 inch long Big Jim peppers. And the wax and green pole beans are blooming copiously. Have inch-long cukes on my vine.</p>
<p>Picked several quarts of sour cherries at a friend’s house Sunday. (They called from their vacation to remind to go pick their cherries!) Plan on making sour cherry jam this weekend and maybe going back to pick more for pie filling. Colleague at work gave me a 4 quarts of apricots yesterday. Will probably pit and freeze those because she will be giving me more on Monday.</p>
<p>Plus herbs are going great guns: basil, oregano, thyme, spearmint, sage. Already have made and frozen one batch of pesto.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>RE: setting fruit. Tomatoes are sooooo picky: won’t set if it’s too hot or too cold at night. They’re like Goldilocks: it has to be “just right”</p>
<p>~~~~~</p>
<p>P.S. Any one have a good recipe for fresh apricot quick bread? I have a quick bread recipe I like, but it uses dried apricots.</p>
<p>My blueberries are doing really, really well.I forgot about them since they are part of the landscaping and not part of my veggie bed.</p>
<p>It also looks like I will get more native cranberries this year, butI haven’t left my contorted quince in the same place long enough to get fruit.:o</p>
<p>I’ve got tons of blackberries, the good kind. :D</p>
<p>Great broccoli! Third harvest of arugula. French Grenoble Lettuce and red Italian lettuce going great. HUGE red artichokes. Italian chard. Lots of escarole and endive. Red Russian Kale bonanza. Beans beginning to come up.</p>
<p>Scotch blue kale not so much. Beets and carrots are slow. Bright lights chard has burnt leaves (sun on top of water will do it every time.) Cipolini onions - I have hopes. NO peas this year. And, even in the greenhouse, the tomatoes are just beginning to flower. Outside - nuffin.</p>
<p>My apologies for being off topic, but I have to vent.</p>
<p>I have two perennials in the back yard. Beautiful, full foliage. Two years old. Do not have the slightest memory of what they are. Because after 2 freakin years, I have yet to see a bud. Every time I see buds, they disappear overnight, so the plant is really healthy, but no clue what the plant happens to be. </p>
<p>Note to you rabbits: Can you spare one SINGLE FLIPPIN FLOWER so at least I know what I’m serving you? Thank you.</p>
<p>Did you get rid of the bunnies, Hayden?</p>
<p>Came home early from a long weekend, thanks to the storm in the gulf 
but had a small crop of cherry tomatoes to pick. There are a LOT on the plants so we will be awash in cherry tomatoes soon. The big tomatoes are still not flowering :(</p>
<p>My knee has been killing me so I haven’t been working in the garden much, but H has been digging just to turn up worms for the momma robin to feed her babies.</p>
<p>Hayden what kind of leaves does it have?
Maybe it is getting too much /not enough light.
This might help.
<a href=“http://www.nal.usda.gov/learn-identify-plants[/url]”>http://www.nal.usda.gov/learn-identify-plants</a>
I had some iris that never bloomed, and it had been planted so long ago that I had forgotten what it was, so I divided it and moved it.
This year they bloomed!</p>
<p>I now have two wee tomatoes on my 2nd plant. Hooray!</p>
<p>emeraldkity, I have no problem with the plant [bold]trying[/bold] to flower. It’s doing its poor little best to burst into glorious flower (I’m sure the flowers would be glorious…).
It’s that the buds never get beyond babyhood and into adolescence. </p>
<p>No, I have not gotten rid of the bunnies. %&#@%@ bunnies.</p>
<p>I am thrilled that I have been having some sun each day. All 4 tomato plants have some fruit on them and a good number of flower. The tomatillo plant is doing well. I planted a cucumber that was recommended as doing well with foggy summers and it has lots of yellow flowers but no tiny cukes yet. This has been the best summer in quite a few years for vegetables in my yard. We had a decent number of sunny days in late April and early May which helped the plants get started. Late May and early June looked like the fog was settling in but the sun is trying hard to come out for at least a few hours each day. The last two days have even woke up to sunshine.
I feed the tomatoes with fish emulsion before they flowered. Do I need to feed them anything now that they are in blossom? (they are in containers)</p>
<p>Would love the answer to your question, mom60. My cherry tomatoes are going gangbusters (have picked about 20 in the past 2 days). Haven’t put plantfood on since I planted them, or within a week of that time. Just soaking in water once or twice a day (though I just did so and after being out for maybe 5 minutes have EIGHTEEN mosquito bites!!) Gotta move the bug spray out to the deck! </p>
<p>The beefsteaks are starting to flower a bit and I noticed that the plant to harvest time is a month longer than the cherry tomatoes (which I started sooner as well) so they may be on schedule.</p>
<p>My basil plant is flowering. Is it supposed to?</p>
<p>Eggplant plants are growing, but no “action” on them yet.</p>
<p>Basil flowers because it’s trying hard to fulfill its reproductive imperative and produce the next generation of basil plants.</p>
<p>If you let it bloom, the plant will produce seeds and die. (Having fulfilled it’s purpose in life!) Pinch off the blooms to extend the life of your plant.</p>
<p>If your plant starts to get woody (and the leaves start to lose their flavor), prune it back severely. It will recover and you’ll get lots of new soft, yummy-tasting leaves.</p>
<p>~~~</p>
<p>While bearing fruit, tomatoes are heavy feeders. I use 1 Tbsp of Miracle Gro Tomato Food per plant per week. As the season progresses and the plants get more more root-bound in their containers, I feed twice a week.</p>
<p>Thanks, wayoutwestmom! Basil flowers are snipped and I’ll feed the 'maters in the morning when there are no mosquitos!</p>
<p>I need to do that to my basil leaves too…thanks for the tip - knew about snipping off the flowers but need to cut it back.</p>
<p>I’ll follow the advice about Basil. Been looking for Basil recipes since now I have multiple stalks of vibrant Italian Large Leaf variety. That’s a good tip about container tomatoes, too WOWM.</p>
<p>We’re expecting 90-degree weather here in the Center of the Universe, so I lightly watered the containers (soaked 'em last night) before leaving for the office this morning. The concrete floor of my patio gets really warm on sunny summer days. Praying that the predicted heat during the next 4 days will fire up the Eggplant and the Okra, though high temperature might send the peas into a tizzy.</p>
<p>We’re having triple digit temperatures for the third day this week. My colleague (the meteorlogist) tells me it’s unlikely to cool down much until after July 4. (And she can’t predict any farther out than that. Summer weather patterns just aren’t as predictable as winter weather she tells me…)</p>
<p>I’m watering everything twice a day–at 7 am before I leave for work and again around 9 pm after it’s cooled off a bit.</p>
<p>My Black Truffle tomatoes are setting new tomatoes like crazy, but the heat has caused the two Better Boys to stop setting blossoms. Have large green and hard as rocks tomatoes on 3 plants, but frustrating they’re not ripening yet.</p>
<p>I WANT FRESH TOMATOES FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY! I have my imported Tuscan olive oil and fig balsamic (thanks for the heads up emeraldkity!) all ready for the first Caprese of the summer…</p>
<p>(D1 will arrive back from Barcelona tomorrow night. She asked what kid of souvenir she should bring back for me–I said a bottle of good Spanish olive oil.)</p>
<p>However, my Big Jim pepper plant looks like it will have green chile peppers I’ll been able to harvest by early next week. Yum! Freshly roasted green chile for my 4th of July burgers. Green chile cheesburgers here I come!</p>
<p>OK- have upped the watering (its ridiculously hot here) but have a new challenge. The plants are outgrowing their tomato cages and stakes. I bought stakes when they first started to outgrow the cages (and after I accidentally broke a few branches which I stuck in the soil and they are growing TOO!) but now they are getting heavy and the cages are leaning (and the plants with them). I am off to get more stakes, but not sure this will solve it. The beefsteaks are starting to flower, and all at the top, so dont want to trim back those plants. Help??</p>