I never have much great luck with bush beans in my raised beds, and I pulled them out tonight. We did fine from them, but they are done. A few tomatoes aren't great: I purchased them from the same source. I could have overwatered them, or it could be that particular bed, or they could just have come with problems....I just prune off yellow foliage and let them keep on because they are loaded with fruit. Okra has been weird this year with me too. They just SAT and did nothing for weeks until I gave them some cottonseed meal. Other forms of nitrogen seemed to do nothing for them, but that worked fine. Next year I'll try manure in the planting hole. Seems they enjoy a stronger dose of fertilizer at a younge age! My squash and watermelon are SLOW but that's OK. Planted late, and they are in a very weedy area and competing with the mullien I planted. I am sure they will do just fine and eventually produce well. I am also going to plant more melon, I like to plant them in stages. Actually as soon as this godawful heat passes I have more tomatoes, sweet potatoes and melons to put in the ground! My limas are going everywhere. The package said bush. THEY ARE NOT BUSH, lol. Ah, well, as long as they make limas I'm good. The bush and climbing beans are doing well. I pulled out one summer squash and planted two hot peppers in it's place. Three more summer squash are meh. Not giving me much, totally full of borers. I smartly underplanted these with more eggplant, which are now flowering and beginning to produce. I've had herbs out the wazoo. This was the first year for blueberry harvest off of dwarf plants. They were trial plants, and haven't done much but were good this year. They are planted in a bed of strawberries which was OK. Not as many berries as last year. I need to add more "good stuff" to their bed and replant them in the fall. Sweet peppers are beginning to fruit. I've had more cucumbers than I know what to do with from just 6 plants!!!! They went NUTS (and other other plants are just starting to produce!) and I now have a few dozen jars of pickles, have given away two bags, eat at least 3 every day (so does my DH). It's been wonderful. We still have chard and kale but tonight's kale was really cabbagey tasting so I guess it's time to pull it soon (it is shading some blueberries yet, so I hate to pull it until heat passes).

Field corn, yellow- Leaming corn, In this area it does better than Reid's Yellow Dent. It has big fat ears that mature sooner and dry down better. Field corn, white- Hickory King, It produced great despite one of the worst droughts we've ever had. I want to try Boone County White also. Sweet Corn- Golden Bantum, It grows like weeds and tastes good, not to sweet. It tastes like corn instead of like the nasty, super dooper, sugary ehanced hybrids. Beans- An unknown cranberry type I bought at the hardware store from a bulk bin four years ago. It produces very well and makes a good soup or snap bean. Yellow eye also does well here as a dry bean. Tomatos- Red Brandywine which I originaly got from Heirloom Seeds in Pennsylvania. It's the best tasting tomato I've ever had. Winter Squash- Walthum Butternut. It yeilds well, has good disease resistance, tastes good in pies. Summer Squash- Yellow Crookneck. It is easy to grow and tastes great. Potatoes- Anything from the grocery store that has a lot of sprouting eyes. Some people say don't plant those old potatoes from the grocery store but I've never had a problem with them. For some reason they just seem to grow as well as any seed potatoe sold at the hardware store. Peanuts- Raw Virginia jumbo peanuts sold at the grocery store as food. For seed it works just fine. Tobacco- Pennsylvania Seedleaf varieties also known as Pennsylvania Broadleaf which is better than any I've found for cigar filler, binder or wrapper. Virginia Gold, It's just one of the best for any type of filler. Any type of Burley filler, binder or wrapper. Pumpkins- New England pie pumkin. It produces well and is strong. It also tastes good. I want to try the Winter Luxury Pie variety though. I think it might taste even better but the New England Pie has done well for me. Okra- I had very good luck with a dwarf hybrid but you can't save seed. I think I will stick with the Clemson Spineless from now on as it also does well and I can save the seed.

seysonn - not sure what's causing the leaf roll. Temps have been in the 80's and the soil is nice and moist. Maybe because that side faces the sun? fireduck - yes, a lot of planning and it turned out a lot better than I expected. My soil (before I started working on it) was also a clay-type called caliche. Mix caliche with water and straw and let them sit in the sun and you get adobe brick. When dried out, it's as hard as a rock. Lots of Kellogg's AMEND, grass clippings and coffee grounds did the trick. HeyJude2012 - the bottom upright is pounded into the ground about 12 inches. Very stable. And the cages are really quite flexible. It all adds up to a nice system. Mike - the lack of marine layer this year (May grey and June gloom) is the answer. I'll have plenty of seeds in case you need them....hope not!

Californian (OP) said: "Black Cherry-OK, but not sweet enough for me" Funny how different tomato lovers have different taste. Frankly, I absolutey love the acidity of Black Cherry, and can't pass it w/o taking a handful when out hunting hornworms. Somehow they remind me of my boyhood in New Jersey in the Fifties stopping at the veggie stands for fresh tomatoes on the way home from the shore. Btw, veggies in New Jersey - you bet and I dare say they're terrific, but I digress ..... Our worst tasting diasppointment this year has been two Yellow Pear - mushy and tasteless. No, I didn't intentionally plant them, unfortunately, the nursery (or their supplier) had them mismarked as Lemon Boys. Aah you say, Lemon Boy isn't exactly a big winner in this forum either but it sure has been good to us over the years - prolific, disease resistant and on the acid side, too - yummmmm ..... Another surprise is Kentucky Beefsteak, not prolific but mighty tasty.