State of the Garden Report, mid-June

As Barbara Kingsolver says, June is the red month.  Every tomato is getting ripe at once.

For a family of four, this would be a nice little haul. The big one for slicing, cherries for snacking, and the rest for the dinner's pasta sauce or salsa fresca.

But that's a single day's picking...and I'm picking them every single day.  If the beans hadn't stopped producing when the temperature topped 90, I'd be panicked. But the beans have given up for the year and the plants are ready for the compost pile.

Of the 'little gem' varieties, I planted a red cherry, a golden cherry, and a grape.  I will look up the exact varieties and make note of them for future. The red cherries are excellent; golden, darn good, grape, not so much. They're not very sweet and the skin is tough.  But it's a funny, funny world where "not so much" is still a million times better than what you can buy in a store.

See the fuzzy ball?  I think it's a cantaloupe!  Possibly a caterpillar, but I'm hoping cantaloupe.  Grow, fuzzball, grow!











And finally, much anticipated okra flowers are starting to appear. (see the little pod-shaped thing at the bottom-left of the plant--looks like Audrey Two)  I only have about eight plants so I'm not hoping for much. At best I'll get enough to supplement a box at the farmer's market for a crunchy, delicious fry-up  But as a dutiful daughter of my beloved mother, to plant a garden and NOT grow okra in it--
Not an option.