Time to find lots of friends. After a slow start, as all were seed-started, we now have lots of squash, lettuce, tomatoes just coming on, green beans (both green and purple). The peas were rather slim this year and the broccoli is still coming. Lots of artichokes. On the fruit tree end of things the very young Asian and European Plum trees had lots of fruit, just small trees. First apples of the year are now apple crisp, and the first peaches just got shaken off the tree.

Last year, when we planted store-bought tomatoes, we had lots in June. Saved the seeds, started them, and they are "later" but just as good.

Should add that raised beds (about 2' tall) have sure helped; quality soil beats clay.

The heat over here has taken a toll on my fruits and vegetables. My cactus garden is happy though.

I planted three apple trees, one died, the plum trees are almost bare. The peas got cooked early on and there were very few, other vegetables didn't even sprout. I did eat my first tomato today, it was great.

My other young evergreen trees have struggled, and a few that were 10-15 years old died.

Day after day of 100F+ temps and zero rain has made for a tough year.

105 here yesterday, it will be warmer for the next few days.

It's been a weird year, but every year is weird when you garden. We busted tail to double up our crop size this year. We got our cool weather garden in early, only to have moles tear it apart just after it started to sprout. So, I tore everything out and lined it with hardware cloth which stopped the moles, but it did delay us bigtime and cost us a short crop cycle or two.

Past that, the heatwave was tough to deal with but I somehow kept everything alive. Warm weather crops like tomatoes, beans and squash are going crazy. Our root crops are mostly disappointing. Potatoes and carrots didn't do the best.

The best part of gardening this year has been my new helper. She's really been amazing help and the views are hard to beat!

I ran into an issue early on with water. We have a water softener and most plants don't like a diet of that stuff.

I wanted to get everything started early and didn't want to use the softened water and it was too early (still freezing) to use my irrigation water supply. So I set up a system to catch water from the metal roof of my shop.

It turns out the plants didn't like the roof water, some died and others had their growth stunted.

I then started to carry buckets up from the river to water all the starts. They liked the river water.

Water problems can take weeks to show up, then additional weeks for the plant to respond to good water, if it even will. This set me back months.

The grapes appear to be doing well.

I have too many deer to even garden. Someday I will build an enclosure, but at this point I have bigger projects. All the gardens in my neighborhood grow deer, so why can’t we eat them?

I bought all the fancy perennials that I could labeled as something deer avoid. They still nibble them to death. I planted a very expensive madrona tree the day I got home with my baby boy from the hospital and the deer nibbled it to near death but I think is it going to make it. I put all my garden time, which is very little, into protecting that tree.

This is one of my best gardening seasons yet, having started 6 or 7 years ago. I have 3 raised beds, with 1 dedicated to strawberries. I have 2 blueberry bushes in large pots. Only half the blueberry crop ripened properly, apparently the rest were set back by the late June heat wave. We had abundant sugar snap peas, only a fair amount of shelling peas. Lots of lettuce in the first 2 crops, going to begin a 3rd today. Carrots and onions look to be doing very well, and 2 crops of radishes. Beets are doing well. First crop of spinach went well, but the second disappeared shortly after coming up - slugs maybe, or too hot at the wrong time, I don't know. Green beans are going gang busters, as are the Sungold tomatoes. I planted a couple Muskovich tomato plants, and the tomatoes are good, but there are not a lot of them.

I learned that my tomato cold frame has turned out to be a "hot" house, and too hot in the hot weather. The clear plastic roof I installed on it a few years ago has burned to brown and black from the extreme heat. And the tomato plant leaves are all curled from being too hot. I just read that tomatoes prefer 80* days and 60* nights, so I'll be making adjustments to the cold-hot frame so that I can adjust the temperature a bit next year.

Everything I do is on our deck, luckily it's large enough. Without an 8' tall fence nothing has a chance here.

The first year chipmunks annihilated everything on the deck, the cat took care of that problem.

Without photos I cannot begin to describe the goodness of the garden this year.

This.


We were able to plant lettuce, onions, carrots, pumpkin, peas, and tomatoes. Early on we did well with lettuce and we were able to snip back and have several more regrow a couple more times. Snap peas did well and grew pretty tall to about 6’0 in height. Once the heat came they dried up pretty quick but at least we were able to harvest a fair amount of them. Onions grew quickly and plentifully. Easy.

The star of the show this year was the cherry tomatoes. As they stand now, the plants measure about 6’6 feet tall and have produced the most plentiful and flavorful tomatoes I have ever eaten. I’m glad we did as many plants as we did. We have had enough to share with all our family and neighbors. We are still only about halfway through the harvest and have enjoyed many salads with them.

Rosemary plants and other small herbs have done well also. Pumpkins were doing excellent as well until what I suspect was deer found them and ate the actual pumpkins and didn’t touch the leaves.


-Steamy

Four large garden beds. Been enjoying the Zuch's for the last month as I staggered planting 4 plants 2 weeks apart. The Walla Walla onions are huge this year with several over the softball size. Bell Peppers did the best I've ever had them do at just over 3' tall and lots of bells hanging. Although I don't much care for the Beets, they were all huge as well. Tomatoes have been coming on for the last week and again we have way too many of them. Green beans were great too.

Actually planted red potatoes this years and let the plants completely die off before harvesting and lots of reds in the baseball to softball size, I've always harvested too early in the past. Cut my artichoke plant out in the early spring, tired of that thing. It had 5 chutes and almost covered an entire garden bed at full growth, but it would give 20-30 good sized artichokes. Artichokes piss me off though, too much work for a couple good size bites..

Last I'm waiting on is the Broccoli...

Keith

Have ten raised beds and a number of containers. The soil the beds were built on, and the soil in the beds is extremely quick draining. This year's excessive heat, drought and community watering restrictions have made gardening challenging. Our plants are showing considerable stress from inconsistent watering. Lettuce has bolted, squash and cucumbers have been hit hard by powdery mildew and the tomatoes aren't producing as well as they have in other growing seasons. Haven't had the produce to give away this summer. Glad to hear others are fairing much better.

Radishes, artichoke, snap peas, and char did well. Broccoli produced. Carrots took a beating and don't seem to be doing much. Tomatoes (Roma and Beefsteak) have lots of little tomatoes on them and are starting to ripen. Cukes and Zukes went insane. Got some beans doing their thing and are looking good.

Herb garden seemed to go to seed pretty quick or fizzed out. Green onions and chives didn't do much for me either.

Didn't really plant anything recently for the fall. Ok, I guess I have one brussel sprout plant that is doing well.

What's are some good veggie seeds to plant now for the fall?

Eating my first tomatoes today, they have a Ponderosa pine smokey flavor. I need to check the seed packaging, I don't think I saw that on the label.

Snow peas did great except I had to throw the bag in the fridge out due to mold yesterday. Only so much stir fry.

Peppers are struggling and some died. Crowded out by the patio and Roma tomatoes in the raised bed. Cucumbers are growing but struggled from snails. I do have soft water on the south end and only the hose in front has direct well water.

Blueberries 3 plants didn't get watered and the birds ate most. Cherries yellow transparent did well no splits since no rain.

Herbs are doing well except the Italian parsley which dries out fast. Peaches are rice and juicy. 2 trees frost peach leaf curl resistant. Apples and plums next up.

Hazelnuts are small since no rain. Squirrels been feeding and had a coon this morning.

Coming along!