Starting peppers and tomatoes in a cold frame has paid off. Able to ward off the spring cold, I got a head start. My wife took 200 cherry tomatoes to give away today. I have so many cherry tomatoes that I had to freeze some. I will throw a few in each sauce dish. My neighbors are avoiding me as I saturated them with tomatoes, raspberries and beans.
The pole beans have been peaking. here is a 2 day harvest
{{gwi:48147}}

My tomato plants are loaded!
{{gwi:52123}}

What I have ripening on the counter
{{gwi:26284}}

Here's the stash so far
{{gwi:48146}}

I gave away all those beans in the above post, but the day before I canned some
I threw in some ripe chili peppers too (Guajillo) that I'm growing. I have about 20 different pepper plants.
11 tomato plants.
{{gwi:48148}}

I used this recipe. I made them before, an awesome recipe!

Here is a link that might be useful: Spicy pickled green beans

Most of the tomatoes are for sauce. I'm growing
Amana Orange (for eating, but so many I saved for sauce too, quite meaty!)
Amish Paste
Cherokee Purple (for fresh eating)
Costoluto Genovese (the best ever for sauce)
Mrs. Maxwell's Big Italian
Paul Robeson
Russo Sicilian Togetta (awesome producer, a great tomato!)
Sungold (cherry)
Sunsugar (cherry)

Yesterday I planted for a fall crop snap sugar peas and a few types of lettuce. Snap sugar peas are just amazingly excellent. You can eat them raw, well I only eat them raw. I used the Burpee hybrid Super Sugar.

On raspberries. i saved about 1/4 of the crop for cooking. In about 9 days the fall harvest should start.
{{gwi:44117}}

This post was edited by Drew51 on Tue, Aug 12, 14 at 9:29

Yikes and look at my zone! Drew that is great! Mrs. G

Vegetable-wise, it's been a great year for cool-season stuff. I still have spring lettuce growing, and the fall lettuce is up and going. Peppers are dismal.

It was dry all of July, but we seem to be getting more moisture for the brown rot season.

I think we had most of the above average temps in the spring. For the first in time in many years there was no major May frost to kill fruit blossoms. The irony is that most all of the fruit buds were killed over winter by unusually low temps. Ouch! I only have significant fruit on one apple tree and one pear tree.

Mrs. G,
That sounds like typical Pacific Northwest summer weather.Instead,the temps have been in the upper 80's to 90's for a good while and hovered near 100 yesterday.It really makes a difference when growing certain things. Brady

It has been an odd year for us too in Southern California. It has been humid and muggy lately. We even got some rain in July and August which is basically unheard of. Last winter we got extremely little rain so we are still in a major drought. They are predicting a lot of rain this winter though. Mainly because it is set to be an "El Nino" year which means it rains a lot (there is more to it I just dont remember it).

Reptile, it sounds as if your typical weather landed in RI this year. I'm on the coast so humidity is usually very high. This summer, very little. By five pm, we have a cool breeze; unheard of this time of year. Mrs. G

It is a strange year here too. I did well on some, but let's not mention all fruit trees lost all fruit buds. 1 tree was killed, another barely had viable buds. The central leader was dead for the most part. All my blackberries except for 1 cane was damaged or completely dead.
So it's been a bad year in some ways. I guess if we grow enough, we at least have something! I have been spending a lot of time harvesting despite the failures. I had 1 blackberry ripe today! A treat, I ate it immediately.
What's cool is I ate a lot of stuff I never tasted before. Some gooseberries, ground cherries (man is this plant prolific!). Also discovering Russo Sicilian Togetta tomato. The plant produces medium tomatoes, but lot's of them. The plant looks sick, curled leaves since it was in the cold frame. But it has produced near 40 3-5 inch tomatoes! It's a cross between Romeo and Costoluto Genovese. I'll be growing it from now on! A sauce tomato. Although it tastes pretty good raw. Many paste or sauce are rather bland until made into sauce.
Here are a couple of typical examples. Nice looking, great color. (all photos are mine btw).
{{gwi:111402}}

Mrs. G,

Although my trees broke dormant a week or two later than usual, my early peach (PF-1) ripened at the same time as last year. The fruit size was its normal size.

My later peaches, PF-24 and Autumn Star, are still small. They seem to take a long time to grow in size.

Blueberries have ripened at their usual time.

No apple. They, Honey Crisp and William's Pride, decided to become biennial this year.

My new fruit is Shiro plum. They are ripening now. It seems a bit later than what I read from other growers.

My pears (both Asian and Euro) are sizing up slowly. They won't ripen until Oct so they take their sweet time.

My potted fig (Paradiso) has some figs on it but the fruit size has not changed in two months. My potted Chicago Hardy just started to fruit. With the rate it grows, I don't think the fruit will ripen in time before it's too cold.

Summer this year is definitely cooler than usual. So far, we had one day of temp over 90 this year. There has not been any heat wave to complain about up to this point.

Thanks Mamuang! Its all so frustrating sometimes, then I forget that it only took my sour cherry 8 years to really fruit and that was this year. My Italian prune/plum will have only about 20 plums this year. My mirabelles are slim. I'm already looking forward to next year, and buying more peach trees that I promised myself I would not do. Mrs. G Downpour tomorrow!

Weather started out unusual for Northern KY with only 2 days in April below 32F for a low. May and June above average temperatures, July below average and August is about average. I think the warmer weather in April started up all of the berry plants early and harvests have been up to 2 weeks early. Consistent rainfall has kept the grass green all summer and made weed control in the berry patch very difficult.

Today: 70Fs, full sun and a stiff north breeze...low humidity=heaven! I'll take it. Cold summer to me is about right. I'm a wimp with heat...i run to the AC and hide. Plants like it, but not me. I already miss the -20Fs and endless days of subzero temps :)

My Geo Prides had the day off...just basking in the sun:

{{gwi:122197}}

Tomatoes? only the big boys grow in my yard:

{{gwi:122198}}

Wow, Frank, I guess so!!! My eggplants are two inches long. Eggplant Parm. for dinner? Boo hoo. Mrs. G

Frank,

Your fruit and veggies are amazing. So are Drew's.

Mrs. G. - you should try T-budd or chip bud in the next few weeks. I tried T-budding last Sept. One of them survived the winter. I read instructions from posters here esp. Frank's and watched some YouTube (I'm a visual learner, need to see how it's done).

I made my trees bruised and battered from so many cuts. Fortunately, none of the cut wounds caused any serious damage to the tree.

Believe me, if I can do it, you can to. Actually, to me, T-budding is more fun (my trees may disagree) than grafting. I may try chip bud this time, too.

Mrs G-

I cheat...i grow all my peppers and eggplants in containers. Its way way way easier and faster to fruit (i've had peppers/eggplant for weeks now). I grow the tomatoes in the ground. I only grow beefsteak types. I start mine early under plastic. I've also already harvested one Galia type melon (very good) and have a bunch more starting to turn.

I have 8 melon cultivars and all have fruit, only one ripe so far. I grew borage and cosmos flowers to help attract beneficials. Here's part of my backyard on 2014 07 29
{{gwi:48157}}

I grow peppers and tomatoes in ground, and in root pouches. The cloth containers are awesome. I'll never buy another hard pot. Air pruning of roots makes a 30 gallon root pouch the same as a 60 gallon traditional pot.
My plants are doing great in them. This photo was also on 2014 07 29
{{gwi:26282}}

Check this out. The 4th pot from right to left is where the cloth containers start. Notice how much greener they are. Same water, soil, and fertilizer.Today the difference is even more pronounced. Photo taken 2014 07 16
{{gwi:26285}}

This post was edited by Drew51 on Wed, Aug 13, 14 at 0:11

It's been quite good here. Things started late and a typical day has been in the low '80's with less than normal humidity, but more than adequate heat to ripen fruit. The only casualty, maybe because of excessive early rain, are my early nectarines. They are mostly cratered and begin rotting as they approach ripeness. First time this has happened with Eastern Glow and Summer Beaut.

Early Star peach wasn't very good but I'm getting excellent peaches now although the Jon Boy's are small. The tree is dying of old age, I think. It has lost its vigor but the peaches are just as good as last year besides the size. Other peaches have sized up fine, so far.

The Shiros this year are excellent, which is good, because Santa Rosa and Early Magic barely set. I thinned the Shiros much more than in the past and it may have helped.

Apples everywhere I manage have good size because of all the early rain, even near the water in Greenwich where it's a bit cooler.

The nice thing about having a 25 year old orchard with lots of trees- there's almost always going to be some good stuff. But on bumper years it plain wears you out. This year is moderate- last was bumper.

I've been spraying my tomatoes with copper weekly and that seems to be keeping early blight at bay. I'm pulling a ton of weight now from various heirlooms but it was Sungold that gave me my early July tomatoes. I get plants very large in a south window of my house and then an unheated greenhouse to make sure of a leap. It is especially important for my peppers.

This has been an exceptionally good year for vegetable gardens here- just the right combination of rain and sun.

Climate change (if this is even related) has been good for this slice of the planet for the last couple of growing seasons- more Canadian air days and fewer long stretches of uncomfortable heat and humidity. Good for sweet fruit and working outdoors. Of course, weather is always in flux and El Nino often seems to kick off drought and high temps in east coast summers. We haven't had really bad drought for a decade.

My year sounds a lot like Harvestmans. weather has been pretty good this year. Apples are looking good, Blueberries bumper crop, veg garden is looking great from squash to cukes , beans. Tomatoes are finally kicking in although I am seeing some blight possibly. I thought my weather would be similar to yours zone wise. I live right at the Cape Cod canal Bridges. I haven't seen cucumber beetles although I haven't looked too hard on my cukes. Squash vine borers haven't decimated my squash yet. I have grown different squashes over the years and have a few that seem to not get them as bad.

My weather has been bizarrely cool. Seeing 70's in the afternoon several days is just weird in July and August. My fruit trees aren't of bearing size, but my eggplants, okra and tomatoes are all very slow.

Usually this time of year I'm wishing it would get to the mid-80's but because it's been more like 97-100. This year I'm actually wishing it were warmer to hit the mid-80's! Very strange. I don't mind so many days below 90, but this is just too cool, while still being humid enough to cause problems.

Yesterday, it didn't even hit 70 here.

Drew, I want your dog. He looks sooo smart! Your gardens have really grown. Everyone's gardens look good. Mine only look neat (almost). Mamuang, maybe in early Sept. you should come down to Newport, because I've watched the videos on you-tube, but I learn best if I am taught in person! I have no scion wood at this point. '

Everyone's veggies, look and or 'sound' fabulous! Mrs. G

Jesse the smartest dog I ever had. Here's his "hey I didn't know?" Look. I asked him why he's letting the birdies in the yard? He used to keep them out. I need to retrain him! He has total control of his ears. A very expressive dog.
{{gwi:122199}}

Back on subject some success this year was due to the cold frame. I was able to get a head start on the peppers and tomatoes, so they were of good size when put into pots and raised beds.
I plan to use it to keep lettuce going into late fall.
Here's a photo of my peppers in the spring in the cold frame. When it was 60 F outside it was 80 in the cold frame.
{{gwi:111403}}

It's been a little bit cooler and rainier than usual here in NE Ohio. A lot of our tomatoes had various spots and cracks, so today we made sauce with them. Cosmonaut Volkov tomatoes were very tasty but the plants are struggling. Tried SunGold cherry tomatoes this year and they were outstanding in quality and quantity. They are going to be a mainstay, as are Yum Yum Gold peppers. Easy to grow, early, tasty and hardly any membrane or seeds! We did mini red bell peppers and they also did well, but they are the opposite in regard to membrane and seeds. One ground cherry plant took off and is producing a handful every day. Had a Blacktail Mountain watermelon and I'd give it an A-. I was very happy with it. Tried an Early Silverline Melon for the first time and I liked it, I'll give it a B. Probably will do it again next year. They were better than my Minnesota Midget Melons, which were actually pretty big. Maybe they got too much rain. A young Montmorency Cherry tree gave me a few delicious handfuls. New plantings of Caroline and Anne raspberries were tasty. A new Illinois Everbearing mulberry also gave me a handful of berries. One tomato I won't plant again is a Gold Nugget cherry tomato. It was a little bit earlier than Sun Gold, but Sun Gold was sooo much tastier. I gave some Sun Golds to a barber I know, and he said they were the best tomatoes he's ever tasted. (I'm pretty sure everybody gives tomatoes to their barber, so that's saying something.)

Drew...what do you attribute the better growth to in regards to the cloth pots?
That really is a good looking dog...what kind is it? There used to be one like it in my neighborhood growing up as a kid.