I Will Grow Eggplants: Should I Build an Ark?

At risk of sounding like a broken record, I will report that it is raining. Again. It has rained almost daily for weeks. At 10:30am, it is a whopping 12 degrees. The daytime temps have been in the teens or low 20s. I don't think it has hit 30 degrees all summer, and I can count the number of times it has reached mid-to-high 20s on one hand. The 14 day forecast indicates more of the same. It feels dismal. The winters here are long and I spend them looking forward to being able to be outside, gardening or just reading in a lawn chair. It feels like we could well head into the autumn without having had a summer.

Garden notes and grumbles follow below...

Three zucchini plants have put out flowers, but they are female flowers - no male flowers with which to pollinate them. A Golden Nugget squash has put out two small flowers, but is in the same boat - there are no male flowers.

   The "Veronica" Romanesco cauliflowers have started to develop. It is always neat to see their pale green fractal shapes emerging from the leaves.

   The lettuce is starting to rot in the containers where it's planted from all the water/wet soil.

    Loads of raspberries are ripe in the patch. I had planned to pick them today. Maybe I should bite the bullet and just do it in the rain. Even if I wait until the rain has stopped, I'll still end up soaked.

   The potatoes are all very well hilled with layers of dirt and straw, but when R. poked around to check for rotting, he discovered that there are few potatoes and that they are all at ground level. That is so disappointing. Too much nitrogen in the soil? Not enough compost?

    The bottom leaves on the container-planted tomatoes are turning yellow, as are the leaves of the potato plants in the raised bed along the driveway. The tips of the garlic leaves (1-2 inches on each leaf) have been brown for weeks. I am going to assume this is from being too wet.

   Norland Potatoes

Garlic

Most of the tomato plants have begun to develop tomatoes and/or have a decent amount of flowers on them. I discovered the first Dwarf Purple Heart tomato the other day! I didn't think this little plant was going to produce, so that was a happy surprise.

Early Annie - producing like mad!

Scotia - another good producer!

The bean plants seem to be doing well, and are covered with flowers. Some, like Red Swan and Beka Brown, are developing pods. If/when we get an extended period of heat and sunshine, they will produce well.

North garden, dry bush beans (Tene's beans and Ireland Creek Annie).

    I typically harvest garlic in the middle of August (two weeks from now, in other words). One generally refrains from watering the garlic patch about two weeks before harvesting so the garlic skins can dry. That patch hasn't been dry in weeks, so I am concerned that some of the garlic might have rotted.

   The volunteer bean plant in the East garden is going strong, vigorously climbing the stake we put in beside it.

    The jalapeno plants are still oddly stunted - just a few inches tall - but a few have developed flowers. I had assumed when I transplanted them that I would be swamped with jalapeno peppers come September. It doesn't appear that this will be the case!

   East garden...

There are about fifteen sunflowers growing. The fourteen I planted haven't developed heads yet. The one volunteer sunflower is already nodding with a large, heavy head! I will definitely be saving seeds from this one.

I have hand-pollinated several Lower Salmon River squash but haven't spotted any more female flowers in the last few days.

The peas are coming along nicely. One of the few things that seems to have done well start to finish despite the cool temps and sporadic sunshine. We haven't done a big harvest yet, but I could resist no longer and did some snacking in the pea patch yesterday. Delicious!