Hell-o August! The last 2 days here have been cooler and wetter with a grand total of ~ 1.7" of rainy showers. That should help put a dent into the local mini-drought for a while. We're back into the 90's for the rest of the week. Harvested all of corn plot #4 as plot #5 is at it's silking stage. The cantaloupes are doing ok but much less productive than previous years, the Aphrodite variety I picked up by mistake is not nearly as good and productive as Ambrosia.

The big surprise so far is the absence of SVBs, no loss of squash plants but I did have to remove a few of them to allow more room for the melon vines (we're a bit tired of squash by now, as usual it's too mush of a goo thing). In about 3 weeks I'll remove the cantaloupe vines and use that space for the fall crops. About a 3rd of the early tomato plants are on the decline as the late ones get close to blooming. Stink Bugs are the #1 pest here.

Lots to do today!

We had below average temps for the last few days which was a nice break but we'll be back up into the upper 90s for the next few days and then cooling back off a bit to around normal by the weekend and all of next week.

I didn't do much in the garden this weekend other than harvest, mow around the beds, pull the spent bush beans and a costata romanesco plant that hadn't blossomed in over a week and was squash bug infested. I planted some more bush beans in the same bed that I pulled the spent beans from. Probably a mistake replanting the same crop back to back but it is the only tall bed I had vacant which makes the beans easier to pick. I didn't have any disease or pest issues with the previous beans. I did mix some compost in between pulling and planting. We'll see how they do.

We received 3/10' of rain yesterday.

It looks like I have a yellow ball cucumber growing with my other cucumber plants. I didn't plant it so there must have been a stray seed in the packet. Haven't tried it yet. Have any of you grown and liked it?

Never have tried a yellow ball cuke Cindy, less us know how it tastes. We just got blasted with a surprise 3/4" downpour, all in less than 15 minutes.

Cindy I grew "lemon" cucumbers a few times and we liked them. Beware of two kinds of cukes growing together you can get some odd results.

Len - I wasn't planning to save seeds but maybe I will now.

I was blessed with about 0.7 rain this morning.

Tomatoes beginning to ripen here now :).

Cindy - I grew one pickle plant with Straight Eight cucumbers and they seemed to all taste horrible. Not only the seeds get abused. I'd pull either the yellow ball or your usual cucumber plants.

vgkg - We were blasted with t-storms overnight. 8/10" of rain here.

Just tasted the lemon cucumber. The skin is really tough. Peeled is the only way I would eat them. It has more seeds than I expected, which I did not eat. The flavor is mild.

Thx for the cuke update Cindy, no rain here overnite as things cleared up after a brief shot before sundown. moisture level is good now but it's back to swelter skelter temps and humidity for the rest of the week. Took a break from gardening today while I could.

I was in Richmond worrying about the chance of rain at home as we were pelted with several downpours in VA during my visit. Came home to discover one inch of rain in the rain gauge! What a relief. So of course i pulled the split tomatoes with an hour of arriving home. We’ve been making tomato sauce (still have a couple of jars left from last year’s harvest). Today i made more sauce, as well as some asian pickles with our cukes (I grew Suyo long), blackberry curd (so many dang blackberries), peanut soba noodles with the last of our sugar snap peas and some sliced cucumbers. The Suyo are very, very tasty. Skin is slightly thicker than a thin-skinned cuke, I think the skin is ok to leave on for pickling or if eating fresh slices but if you want a big bite, i would peel it.

The deer ate the beans and two patio tomatoes growing in the Greenstalk Vertical Planter! They also helped themselves to my beet greens…quite the buffet they’ve been having over the past couple of weeks. One of my very immature Minnesota Midgets fell off the vine so I bagged and strapped the bigger one. I come home from work everyday to discover a new insult.

August is off to a rough start for me. Yesterday I discovered a split watermelon that was about a week away from ripe. I ate the heart out of it and composted the rest. Also yesterday: a heavily loaded branch broke off of the peach tree. This morning as I was headed out to check on things a squirrel scampered out of the peach tree with a nice big peach hanging from his mouth. He dropped it after a few steps/jumps then ran up a different tree and jumped onto the roof of the house. I expect he hopped down on the other side of the house. It will be a battle for every peach.

itsmce - If you leave water out for the critters they'll eat less of your fruits and veggies.

Sorry about your stealing squirrel, Margi. I've had the same thing happen to me. It's possible to pick peaches at little early and they will continue to ripen.

Hotter than you know what here. It will be cooler tomorrow. Possible rain later today and tomorrow with lower temperatures.

Went outside to do some weeding and was drenched in less than 20 minutes.....it wasn't rain either. Will try to mow some grass in the afternoon when the humidity may be lower with a breeze but with higher temps. There's a High Heat Warning along the coastline, no cool ocean breeze out there today? We're not in the Warning area but it sure feels like it. Picking a watermelon daily now, tomatoes are still coming in heavy even though half of the plants are dying. Some of the Pink Brandywines are huge (close to 2 lbs).

I also need to pick tomatoes today, too. Not sure when I will do it but it needs to be before the rain later.

vgkg - I harvested a 1 lb. 14 oz. Brandywine Suddeth strain last week. I didn't recall them getting that big before but I haven't grown it for a few years.

We got a pretty good rain overnight. I haven't checked my gauge but I'd guess close to 2 inches.

John - thanks for the recommendation to set some water out for the critters. I'll give that a try.

Cindy - I check the tree daily for peaches that are getting close. So far I haven't picked a single one that doesn't have plum curculio larvae in it. Maddening! I noticed a new broken branch this morning. The biggest, prettiest, peaches are beyond my reach standing near the top of my 8' step ladder. I think I need to do some serious tree trimming after this season is over. I am also fighting the Japanese beetles to the near-ripe peaches. yuck!

Jack - I am SO envious of the rains you've gotten. I am still at only about 1/2" in the last 6 weeks. That, on top of temps in the upper 90's to mid 100's make for a rough summer.

On the plus side...I picked a 26 pound Crimson Sweet watermelon yesterday. Yum!

Veggie suppers for a week with ripe tomatoes from half a dozen varieties. Rain clouds just split and go around me every time, with zero moisture in the soil so doing the last watering on potatoes and 2nd corn planting right now.

I grew Kennebec potatoes for the first time this year and dug up one plant this morning with a pleasant surprise. From the one plant I got exactly 5 pound of potatoes and if consistent with the entire 65 ft. row I'm looking at over 300 lbs, I was expecting 100 to 150 pounds max. Is it an unusually high bumper crop here or is this just normal for kennebec potatoes?

We had a good downpour last night along with thunder and lightening. Rain gauge had just shy of 1.5" in it. It might rain again this afternoon/evening but the likelihood of it happening is much lower.

Glad I picked any tomato with a blush yesterday before the rains arrived.

Received 1.25" of rain last night with psychotic winds. Much appreciated the water but so many downed trees/branches. Can't wait to survey the yard later.

Kevin, I grew Kennebec and Pontiac potatoes in compost bags last year and recall getting good harvests from both despite neglecting them.

Kevin - I grow Kennebec potatoes and usually get great harvests! I steal from the plants early in the season so it's hard for me to really measure output. Last week I replanted for a fall harvest (I hope).

I picked another 26# Crimson Sweet watermelon this morning, and I've picked 3 Ambrosia cantaloupe in the last 36 hours. Another 'loupe may be ready tonight.

Just hot and dry here. Expecting >100*. We've had 20 days over 100, and a bunch more over 95.

I feel for you Margi! I think we've only had a handful of days over 100 up here but plenty over 95 with a couple more this weekend before it cools off a bit back to normal upper 80s next week.

I haven't harvested anything in a few days and need to go out and do that today before it gets too hot.

Kevin - I've gotten good harvests from Kennebec but probably more like 2-3 lbs. per plant. My brother also grows them in sandy Wisconsin soil and gets great harvests but he has his on drip irrigation and waters regularly.

We had a male calf born yesterday evening. The mom was a 20 month old heifer that we didn't even know was pregnant. I guess we waited a little too long before separating the two 10 month old heifers from the bull last fall. We didn't think they would cycle that young. We don't think the other young heifer was knocked up last fall but she should be now. The mom had a tough time and we ended up having to pull the calf out with a rope tied to a 4 wheeler. The four mature cows should be calving any day now too.

Goodness, LoneJack, exciting news! Hope the remainder of them calve easily.

Ya got you hands full there LoneJack, we just got 1 chicken to deal with here, nyuk. Right now the state is peppered with thunderstorms all around us, lots of noise but the rain is still being shy yet. Dismantled a couple of drying tomato plants today and yanked out the early cosmos flowers to collect seeds. The cosmos has self seeded and should produce a good autumn bloom in a couple of weeks. I count about 5-6 cantaloupes left to ripen as those vines show their age. Picked 3 more watermelons today, when the snipped stem bleeds red that's a good sign. Better hit submit before the lightning gets too close....

It's been thundering and lightening here for over an hour. Probably too much rain here and I feel for the people who really need it.

Just received another inch of rain. Thank goodness.

Picked another batch of tomatoes on Tuesday before the storms came Wednesday.

I’ve picked and shared my favorite: asian yardlongs

Picked and shared several of the Suyo cucumbers (extremely prolific and vigorous):

More insults when I inspected the garden today! Something ripped off my corn and started to eat it-

I only have one or two ears that may be edible ☹️

AND something stole my ONLY watermelon! Grrrrrrrr!!! 😡

That's too bad, Anna. I would suspect a groundhog for the watermelon rip off.

We received just shy of an inch of rain yesterday. I had picked any tomato that showed any color earlier in the day so hopefully the others remaining on the plants will not split.

How big was that watermelon? I've had GHs over the years but they've never stolen one. Unless it was really small it might have been be a 2-legged critter. Yesterday's close-by storm turned into a good long shower of 0.6". Enough to keep things happy for a few days but not enough to pop open tomatoes or melons. That storm did do a lot of damage in the city though. Another storm is over the city as I type but it's just skirting us again.

I think the watermelon was taken by someone, not something. The rinds in my compost get cleaned off but the rind always remains uneaten. ❤