<p>My cherry tomatoes are growing like weeds, and the ribbons on the eggplant’s tomato cage seems to be keeping birds away (thanks for the tip WOWM). Haven’t yet done the double-decker tomato cage thing. I really fear they’ll fall right over. But, I did make a tomato sauce with some of the cherry tomatoes (doctored up a store bought jar) and the fresh basil. Yumm! The beefsteaks are flowing but the flowers seem to dry up ad I am watering thopse suckers like crazy. So we shall see.</p>
<p>The branches that I accidentally broke off when adjusting the tomato cages a few weeks back are growing!! So my posts may be overcrowded. Oh well. I’ll wait and see.</p>
<p>Got my first tomato today! Also my Black Truffle tomatoes are starting to blush so I ought to get some of those soon.</p>
<p>In other news, monsoon season has arrived. (Thank goodness! We desperately need the rain. Also it’s cooling off afternoon/evening temps. Last week it was over 100 degrees every day. Whooo! Hot! Now it’s a more reasonable upper 80’s at 4 pm.) The downside of these thunderstorm is the wind knocks blossoms and fruit off the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.</p>
<p>Still no green or wax beans. Plenty of blooms but they’re not setting. My work colleague is on her second picking of beans. </p>
<p>D1 came back from Spain Saturday–though sadly without a bottle of olive oil for me. (I got a watercolor of Alhambra instead. Pretty but not nearly so tasty as olive oil.)</p>
<p>Grilled eggplant from my container garden yesterday (in the rain) as part of my 4th of July cookout. (The other part was green chile and cheddar stuffed buffalo burgers.)</p>
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<p>jym–last summer I had 3 cherry tomato plants and in self defense learned how to make roast tomato puree from cherry tomatoes (HINT: a food mill is your friend)–which I then froze and used in the winter to make homemade tomato soup. So very yum!</p>
<p>I also dried cherry tomatoes (in my oven set to 180 degrees) and I use them to make dried tomato pesto, in pasta salads and on homemade pizza.</p>
<p>I had one beautiful, almost ripe, tomato and my big dog ate it! I had moved the pot from the deck railing onto a table because it was very windy and didn’t want pot to get blown over. Do have one more than has started to ripen and I have moved pot back to deck railing. </p>
<p>My basil leaves are turning yellow. Can’t decide if I’m watering too much or not enough, or just right but it’s not draining well enough. I poked a pencil through the holes in the bottom to loosen the soil so it will drain better. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Solved the teetering tomato plant problem by placing a small amount of landscaping rocks (smaller than marbles) in the bottom of the pots. Patio can get very windy but no tipping thus far this season. I stopped using tomato cages because they never seemed to work well in my containers, so this year I just used stakes. Nothing but green baseballs from the Golden Jubilee and the Black Krim so far but the warmth of July and August will hopefully bring ripeness and the desired color. The Better Boy seedlings are moving right along.</p>
<p>Also had to use stakes for the Cajun Delight okra, which unbeknownst to me was a vining variety, unlike other okra plants which typically are vigorous stalks. Wish I had some of mama’s backyard bamboo like EK. Prodigious growth and darn near indestructible.</p>
<p>The zucchini plants, Magda and 49er Gold, are producing their first fruit. Had to pollinate by hand as I have seen no bees this season. It’ll be zucchini on the grill this weekend.</p>
<p>Finally cut the Magda zucchini and cooked it, making zucchini ribbons and sauteeing them with onion and basil in olive oil. Hmmm. A so-so taste that made me wonder if it was worth the effort. Up next is the gold zucchini because it’s ready to be picked. Looks great with that bright yellow color.</p>
<p>The heat has stalled the Sugar Snap Peas so I pulled them up. The few pods I had tasted great. Sweet and crunchy. Will do a planting for fall harvest in a couple of weeks. Jubilee tomato is finally beginning to turn yellow. Oh, and two small flowers have appeared on the okra!!! Can’t wait for them to bloom and sprout into pods!!!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the recipes everyone!! Any idea why my eggplants are all leaves and no fruit? And am still having all the flowers on the beefsteak tomato plants shrivel up and die, but the cherry tomatoes and basil are still doing great.</p>
<p>I planted some annual flowers in the front and they leaves are being eaten by rabbits. I got out of my car to shoo one away today!</p>
<p>Jym626, I’ve read that eggplant seedlings need plenty of heat for healthy growth and that an interruption of cool temperatures (below 70) will interrupt the plants’ growth and may even prevent the production of fruit.</p>
<p>I’ve got two seedlings of the Fairy Tale variety that have finally gained another inch or so in height with robust leaves. Our spring and early summer were warm, but apparently not warm enough, particularly overnight.</p>
<p>The six varieties of tomatoes in the greenhouse are flowering like crazy (except for the Chocolate Cherry, which I planted late, but it’s about to break out.) One lonely Black from Tula tomato Still tons of kale, italian chard, bright lights chard, gai lan, broccoli, cipolini onions, endive (going to seed), escalarole, red Italian lettuce, French Grenobli lettuce. Can’t eat it all! Oh, and Italian carrots! very slow starting, but now they’re beautiful. The beets are only so-so. And bean plants!!! </p>
<p>I’ve planted new lines of the leafies, plus brussels sprouts, and two more lines of carrots and beans, on the theory that I’ll have them in September and later.</p>
<p>LakeWashington-
NO PROBLEM with getting enough heat here! Its been over 100 at times and definitely in the 80-90s! Ugh.
Bummer-- We had a bad storm last night that did lots of damage to the tall beefsteak plants. Lots of branches broke or severely bent. Have tried to splint them. Not expecting much :(</p>
<p>I have a question, hopefully one of you can help me out.</p>
<p>S bought me a beautiful lemon tree which is thriving on my deck. It now has several lemons of good size, but they are green. H keeps telling me that it is a lime tree, but it was clearly tagged as lemon. So, the question is, when does the fruit turn yellow? Do I need to pick it first? I have no experience with this.</p>
<p>Here in N Call my lemons dont turn yellow until abouit December. It seems they take 10 months. Mine are Myers.</p>
<p>Mini I’d love to heaar more about your cippolini. Ive trked my hand at those afew times. Do you know what variety? Are they long day? Started from seed, I assume, or plants? Where did you get them? When did you put them out? Onions seem so comlicated.</p>
<p>Now that the temperature has returned to a comfortable 80’s as opposed to the 100’s here in Ohio I’ve been doing a little garden/garden pot clean up this week. Dumped a few plants that just were not making it. Replanting a couple into better sized pots. Adding some fresh nutrient rich soil to my hanging baskets (know how they get when you water them and the water just runs right through? I find adding another layer of soil midsummer helps to retain water). </p>
<p>With the heat we’ve had, the garden was seeming sluggish and blah. This midsummer spruce up is reviving, at least, my visual point of view of it!!!</p>
<p>My beans aren’t doing much, what’s your secret mini?</p>
<p>I think I want a greenhouse, but the best place to put it would be in front of the garage.
We don’t use it for our cars anyway, but I don’t think I could talk H into it.</p>
<p>Got cipolini starts from [url=<a href=“http://www.growitalian.com/]Seeds”>http://www.growitalian.com/]Seeds</a> from Italy<a href=“They%20have%20GREAT%20beans%20too!%20and%20genovese%20tomatoes%20-%20the%20absolute%20best!”>/url</a> We’ll have to see how successful - they have been heavily shaded by huge artichoke plants I have this year. Put them out April 5th. Long day variety.</p>
<p>The secret for beans is DON’T PLANT TOO EARLY (or when there is too much rain). Many of them will end up rotting in the ground. They won’t do anything until soil temp. is 55-60 anyway. Beans are going to be huge this year (and we couldn’t eat them all last year.) But I never got bush purple romano seeds from Territorial. Sniff, sniff. Got purple tomatillos, though, and they are flowering.</p>
<p>We put up our greenhouse in front of the garage. (Of course, we’d turned our garage into our bedroom.)</p>
<p>^ Kewl! I have bought cippolini seed from them; didn’t realize they had starts. three varieties if I recall correctly. I think most cippolini are long day; I think they had one intermediate day variety. I got some starts at Dixondale, I think an intermediate/ long day cippolini. </p>
<p>Thanks! Those seem to be the easiest ones to get as starts, and are considered intermediate/long day. Intermediate onions that you set out in winter seem hard to find, especially at the right time. Territorial has them in the fall. I think I will try again.</p>