Not that long ago I was complaining about the cool dry weather. Then it was the all the rain. Now I wish it would cool down a little bit and we could use a little rain (just a little mind you!). Temperatures have been just shy of 90 even here at our elevation, nighttime lows in the 70's, and I had to haul water out back last week to water the beans, peppers and tomatoes since we only had 1/2" of rain last Monday. Not that I'm complaining - I found out last year that too little rain is easier to deal with than too much like we had in 2011 (and last month!). But since I refuse to haul water to the wild berries, it definitely helps to have a LITTLE rain each week.
Things are coming along, the cukes are vining and blossoming, we've got 1 female zucchini blossom waiting for a male (wonder if the neighbors have male blossoms and I can borrow some pollen?), and the Bush Blue Lake green beans are starting to flower, while the Kentucky Wonders are starting to climb. There are some baby tomatoes on one of the cherry tomato plants, 1 on a Black Krim and another on a Cherokee Purple. The "early" tomatoes haven't set fruit yet, but at least they've got blossoms and if they don't wither up and die without being pollinated (tomatoes are picky about that, they won't set fruit if temperature is over 90 during the day and/or over 75 at night and we've been close) we should see some fruit soon.
The blueberries are starting to ripen, the wild raspberries are ripening faster than I can pick, and the cultivated raspberries have been ripening for a week, but got "sunburnt" (bleached out druplets on the south side) this weekend. I won't be at market this week but if I have enough blueberries to bring in addition to jams, I'll be at East Granby market on the 17th. Tomatoes will take a while (may not be until August for the earliest ones), peppers even longer, but hopefully by the end of July we'll have squash, cucumbers (maybe some dill to go with them), and green beans.
We do have plenty of kale, tatsoi, and mustard greens as well as oregano - as I found out last week though, it's hard to keep kale from wilting at market on a 90-degree day, even with a cooler full of ice. But if anyone wants to come by to pick some up, I'll cut it when you get here, just send me an email to let me know you're coming!
