The good news is that I just picked 3 ripe tomatoes tonight and put them in my famous pasta salad.

The bad news is those tomatoes were already green on the plant when I bought the plants. I'm getting some blossoms but I'm NOT seeing more little 'maters. I really hope we get more than just those 3!

Next year I am going to prepare and wintersow my vegetable garden in the fall.

The cilantro that went to seed (and I left to overwinter) is up and going like gangbusters, too bad there are no tomatoes to put it with. Already blossoming and going to seed too, so maybe I'll look into harvesting coriander this year to cut down on the seeds left in the garden.

The tomatillos are also going crazy, again, lots of seeds left from tomatillos that were too small last year. The effort has been to thin them out so that they get to be a decent size without overcrowding like last year. I actually had to thin two of them out that were almost an inch around on the stem because there were a couple of volunteer tomatoes growing under them. Tomatoes are a little higher priority than the way too plentiful tomatillos, since it appears that all my indoor tomato starts didn't make it through transplanting.

I also have pumpkins that ended up getting spread everywhere when I redistributed soil from an informal compost area. Originally all seeds in that informal compost area were covered with cardboard to prevent them from coming up, but I guess the cardboard sort of disappeared and in my backyard berm building, I lost track of those discarded seed filled areas.

We also had some green leaf lettuce volunteer between cracks in pavement in the backyard. I was surprised that they were full size. I've picked one, but it was a little too bitter for my wife's taste.

Some onions that didn't get large enough last season that had been stored in the garage over the winter were returned to the garden. Of course, they are all going straight to seed. It looks pretty interesting, hopefully they will have nice blooms and maybe I can harvest those seeds too, for planting.

Two celery plants that I grew last year actually survived and made a comeback this year. Again, going straight to seed. We thought the celery was much too tough, so I have just been growing it for fun, I guess.

Pretty much everything else is just barely starting or trying to make a comeback, including a bunch of jalapenos, chilis, peppers, basil, and eggplant that I had started from seed, but had a rough transplant. I'm hoping that at least one of each comes back, but it doesn't look good.

My soaker hose set up is a little heavy on the supply end, and light on the opposite end. I will have to either remedy that somehow during the season or go with driplines next year. I turned off the overhead fixed spray sprinklers that hit what is now the garden, but there are still two overhead rotating sprays that cover the area lightly.

No significant bug problems, but my apple trees, one in particular, was hit pretty hard by fire blight, but I guess that's a disease, not a bug.

I rode 100 miles on the MS ride last Saturday in Logan, so now, maybe I can pay a little more attention to the garden.

My tomatoes are doing great. I've noticed that the tomatoes I have planted against the wood fence on the west side of our yard are setting fruit, but the plants that are out in the open haven't set fruit yet, I think it is because of the afternoon shade the plants along the fence are getting. My pepper plants are doing great and many are starting to blossom. I have a Yellow zucchini that is blossoming and has a couple baby fruits. My cucumbers are doing good and blossoming and the Cantelope and French Breakfast melon are doing incredible and are blossoming---first year for melons. The watermelons I planted are growing a lot slower than the other melons, so I don't know if I'll get many, if any to ripen. My Raspberries are late this year, so I haven't picked any yet, but should be in the next week or so. The fruit trees I planted this year seem to be doing good, except for the apricot which I think was dead before I got it. I'll have to get a refund from Stark Brothers. I was late geting my garden in, so I didn't plant any peas or lettuce, chard, etc. I plan on planting some snap peas the middle of August to get a Fall crop. I might plant some beets too---even if I just get some baby beets and their greens.
Anyway, all I can say is that since I started using organic fertilizers like compost, bone meal, and fish emulsion, my gardening has been much more successful. I can't wait to eat my first tomato!
Happy gardening!
Tyffanie

Glad to hear the progress of others. It is our first year gardening and not sure how we are doing, so its good to compare. We already went through a big batch of mixed greens, arugula and spinach that went to seed a few weeks ago. No luck on asparagus, Romain is robust and ready to harvest. Kale and Chard have been slow to produce as well as beats, may have to skip those next time.

Potatoes and onions about ready to start harvesting, Our zuchini is producing a monster zuc about every other day with a huge amount to come, yellow squash are a few days from being harvestable. Our watermelon vine is also slow to grow compared to other vines. The pumpkin vine is looking robust but no flowers yet. All berry growth has been lackluster. Most pepper plants are showing the first signs of small peppers with two types already showing fist sized peppers. Peas were fairly fruitful but we did not trellis properly so they have slowed production.

We had very bad earwigs just start up a few weeks ago. We put up a few traps and that has helped a bunch. I started with a few tuna cans and have been adding individual applesauce containers as I eat them. Mix equal parts soy, cooking oil and molasses. Sink the cans so that the top are level with the ground and pour the trap mixture to cover the bottom of the can. I spread them around the garden then concentrate new traps where i see new earwig damage. It has worked well enough that i am happy I did not resort to chemicals, which was my first knee jerk reaction when I realized my veggies were under attack.
Good luck with that.
PP