Happy Saturday!

This week, I took the shade clothes off of my tomato and cucumber plants for the first time since I put them on in late May. I saw the weather forecast, was surprised to see mostly mid to high 80’s degrees-Fahrenheit, and figured it was time to let these warm weather plants out in full sun to finish growing and producing. Besides, with me being gone for most of September, these plants will suffer under shade.

This was also the first time I got to look at the plants (I mean really look) without the shade clothes. First thing I noticed were those cucumber vines. Do you see how long they are? If I am to laid them flat, they would probably be close to 10 feet. Everybody has well surpassed the 6 feet trellises.

I haven’t had much of a harvest this week. All the plants are in somewhat of a lull, like they are waiting on something. Rain, maybe? Just like me? I keep seeing forecast of monsoon and rain but I am only getting drops or wind. This weekend looks pretty promising though, I hope it delivers, at least refill my rain barrels for me.

One thing I am very proud and happy to see in the garden this year has to be these trellises. For once, something I made held up and made it through the summer. I made these trellis with the assistance of AI back in March. I did the physical labor, obviously, but AI did the math for me. These were constructed with 1-inch PVC pipes with half-inch concrete rebar hammered into all the legs. It’s designed to withstand up to 55 mile/hour wind but all the plants must be trimmed to single-leader. If not, then the maximum wind speed would be 35 mile/hour.

That was the one thing I didn’t do – prune to a single-leader. I was very active at pruning at the beginning but all the other tasks made pruning fall by the wayside and by the time I got to it, 4 or 5 side shoots had grown from the plant and began to flower and fruit. I never have the strength to throw away potential food, who has? When I prune though, I pruned from the bottom up because the top leaves are the newest and the ones closest to the sky. Those are the most important when it comes to photosynthesis.

Right now, I still have shade cloth over the fall and winter vegetables because those require cool weather such as below 80-degrees-Fahrenheit which I doubt will happen in September. This year, I am focusing mostly on root vegetables. I have daikon radishes, watermelon radishes, and carrots growing in one bed and a mix of French breakfast and Plum radishes growing in another bed. I had great success growing daikon radishes last fall that I thought I’d give it another go. I’m also trying a new variety of carrots called Samurai Red. It’s a Japanese kintoki carrot that’s supposed to withstand colder temperatures than regular carrots.

Well, that’s a glimpse at the summer garden. Next week, I’ll probably writing from China, hopefully I can get on WP from there. Anyway, thanks to Natalie for hosting WeekendCoffeeShare and I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.