From faithful garden correspondent Marvel:
Over this-away, we’re up to the third verse of that old gardener’s refrain, What Were We Thinking When We Planted All That.
We’ve started picking pears and are happy that they can spend a little time without our help (or processing!) ripening up. They make a pretty still life, but it’s an oxymoronic tableau — there’s NOTHING still in August around here!
The lettuce, parsley and spinach we planted a few months ago are still going strong. While we’ve had a few blistering hot days in their short & fragile lives, quick rigging of umbrellas and shade cloth has been sufficient to prevent their bolting…so far.
We’ve been canning and freezing tomatoes like crazy. I usually put in 12-14 varieties, assuming I’ll lose a certain amount to bugs, slugs or BER. This year, after defending them against some critter(s) that gobbled the first few ripe fruit, we find ourselves awash in hale/hearty/productive plants. I’ve taken to going door-to-door to my neighbors with big trays of tomatoes for their taking (kind of a reverse Halloween thing, sans costume). Sometimes they make me bring a zuke or two home in return (we harvested & pulled up our zukes a few weeks ago) — it’s only fair.