August 4, 2016 - mid-summer

Here we are in mid-summer and most everything is busting out pretty well. The weather this year, unlike the past couple of years, has been very consistent - very mild days in the low 70's and evenings bottoming out mid to high-50's. However the peppers and tomatoes have been doing very well although there still hasn't been a whole lot of either to pick yet. The beans are just starting to come consistently. And although we had quite a bit of the crookneck summer squash, it seems for some reason that it's already starting to stall. I expected it to last at through September so not sure what's up with it.

Box 1

The beans are really coming out now but it's pretty obvious to me that I planted way too many. I tried setting space for four separate plantings but could only get in two. I staggered two rows and kept the poles about a foot apart and put 8 seeds per planting. Next year I should go with four at most and add better support for the poles. As for the squash, although we're still getting fruit, they are not growing quite as quickly and the plant itself seems to succumbing to severe mildew and growth is slowing down considerably.

Box 2

The tomatoes have grown so much better this year but it's just now that the fruit is starting to ripen. Again I think that a healthier plant will take its time to set out fruit as long as it has the means to keep growing, that once the fruit is set the plant changes direction and halts the process. That would explain why we got fruit as early as the end of May last year. The fruit looks fantastic and should lead to a bumper crop within a couple of weeks and hopefully last well into October. I've kept up a thorough schedule of watering - hand watering on Monday and Thursday with drip irrigation at an hour on Saturday morning with two leads into each plant's reservoir. I also fed with the neutral fertilizer back at the end of June.

Box 3

I just removed the remaining onions to store inside and will be preparing the bed for cole crops this weekend - kale, chard, broccoli, etc.

Box 4

The peppers are starting to set fruit. We got one crop of padróns so far with plenty more to come. There is still a bit of lettuce to go, I added a new set of seeds yesterday to fill in the spaces along with some beet and radish seeds. There is a new crop of beets ready to pull and the basil has done very well.

Box 5

The herbs have done very well I think due to a more diligent pruning on my part especially of the oreganos and thymes. I've had some trouble getting a good bunch of parsley going but I've had enough to work with so far. Replanting a new herb box each year seems to be the way to go from now on.