So This Is Summer

I spent much of today working in the garden. Weeded the eggplants and some of the tomato rows. Trellised a few more rows of tomatoes with wire and old mesh screens I have. Watered over half the garden. Picked two cherry tomatoes. 

This has been a very cool summer so far. We haven't had temperatures above about 85 degrees since June. I have row after row of tomato plants with big and little green tomatoes. I have harvested only one yellow Taxi tomato and five cherry tomatoes. I harvested several meals' worth of Royal Burgundy Beans and Greasy Beans. We have eaten a lot of lettuce and cilantro and mustard and that is about it. Otherwise, nothing to harvest yet... and it is August 3rd! It has been this cool and rather moist summer that has slowed the garden to a glacier's pace. 

Rich noted this afternoon that once the tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos ripen, we are going to be buried beneath an avalanche of fruit. And that will hopefully be true! I joked the other night that I will be scrambling to get every blanket from everyone of my friends to ensure a harvest after an early frost. It just seems like that kind of season. 

But I am not complaining. Working in the garden has been a rather pleasant task. Despite the tenacity of the grasses growing everywhere, weeding has not been so much of a chore as it was last year. And it has been beautiful, with all the flowers and the slower pace of growth, I feel I have had time to really enjoy the beauty present in the garden, rather than lurching from one emergency task to another. 

The pictures below: 1) Amish Cockscomb blooming in the center of the garden. 2) The row of lovely orange Cosmos as you enter the garden from the yard. 3) Our first eggplant of the season. 4) The first tomato. 5) The Greasy Beans are doing great! 6) A freshly-trellised row of tomatoes get comfortable.