Early August Update

   An update from R. on our garden in BC!  While temperatures have returned to "summer normal", it is still very dry there.  The air has been hazy for weeks from the wildfires in the province.  Several of the crops R. planted were negatively impacted by the intense heat in July. Despite regular watering, some of them have just not bounced back or performed the way they would in a typical year.  (We haven't had a "typical" growing year in the past three.  This year, intense heat and lack of rain...2020 and 2019 were cool, overcast, and very wet.)

   The shelling peas (Green Arrow and Alaska) were stunted in their growth and put out far fewer pods than usual.  The Green Arrow pods were also smaller than usual.  I think the goal, at this point, is to snack on the precious few that are till tender and well-formed.  The rest will be allowed to dry out and will be saved as "back-up" seed for next summer.

   This was a day's harvest picked this past weekend.  Normally, a day's harvest of peas would be two or three full buckets. 

Alaska peas

 

 

Green Arrow  (shorter than usual)

 

Green Arrow (peas smaller than usual).

 

 

   The dry bush beans haven't been doing that well in the heat, either.  That's unfortunate - I always look at dry beans as one of the foolproof crops!  We'll see in the coming weeks what the harvest looks like.  In poor growing years, I'm happy if we're at least able to harvest the same amount of seed that was planted so we'll have it to plant again the following year.

   Bea, lounging on a warm water barrel while supervising R's effort.  Tomatoes and lettuce in the background, south side of the house.

 

 Tomatoes in the back, ground cherries in the front.

 

Ground cherries

 

 

   The Swedish Red dry peas seem to be doing well.  At the very least, we should have enough to grow out next summer.

 

 

   The potatoes are thriving.   Fingers crossed that the crop below the surface is as abundant as the leaves above ground!

 

Little Lou snoozing in the tall grass. 

 

 

   The peppers have loved this summer's extreme heat and are doing well.  I started Sweet Chocolate, Shepherd (a sweet, pointy red pepper), and Tam (mild jalapeno) seeds before leaving in late March.  

Not sure which pepper variety this is below...

 I think this is a Shepherd pepper plant.

 

 

And maybe this is one of the Chocolate pepper plants?

 

 

   The Pineapple sage flourishing!  We must pot some of this to overwinter inside again this Fall.  :)