Hello garden gals and guys! Did you survive the heatwave? I did…barely. My hens survived, too. I gave them lots of cold watermelon and frozen berries to snack on. They stayed under the shade of my neighbor’s tree that hangs over my fence and did a lot of dust bathing.
My tomato plants have done a lot of growing over these summer months and turned into shrubs that needed to be tamed!
Ugh.
I knew it couldn’t wait any longer so this past Sunday I sprayed myself with bug spray (the no deet kind, thank you very much) and got out early in the morning (6AM) to try and beat the extreme heat.
It kind of worked.
Okay, no it didn’t.
It was already 85 degrees and muggy. Really muggy. But I had to make my tomato shrubs look more like tomato plants. They needed to be thinned out so they didn’t get blight or a fungus from all the humidity. Here is what it looked like before:
Ish. A hot mess (pun intended).
I had to buy 8 foot stakes to tie them to. You can see one there in the picture above. Trying to figure out which vines went where was like trying to untangle a bunch of necklaces. It took me three hours but I finally got it mostly done. Here’s what it looks like now:
I just need one more stake for the front there, but it took me three hours to get these tomatoes restaked and thinned out and by that time it was close to 100 degrees and I was completely drenched in sweat.
My poor pepper plants were completely covered. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t have put them in there with the tomatoes, or I should have done a better job of keeping the maters trained on the stakes, but oh well. There are some nice habaneros forming. I also managed to harvest these beauties:
My tomatoes aren’t getting red much at all. It’s just been too hot and tomatoes like heat, but not that much heat! I’m usually inundated with cherry maters by now. But I have managed to get a few handfuls of the cherries over the past few days. This is a picture of the complete harvest. Small, but yummy nonetheless:
I think I may try and make a small batch of salsa today.
Okay on to even more yummy things. July means what?
PEEEEEAAAAAACHES!!!!!!!!!
Yes, the Georgia Peach Truck is making its tour across the East Coast again and I was waiting there faithfully for them at the Anne Arundel Farm Co-op. This year they also had fresh shucked pecans! Hubby likes to have peaches and pecans in some heavy cream after his dinner, so now his after-dinner treat can be farm fresh!
I got there early and was fourth in line. Some other women who got there after me tried to cut in front of me, but I had none of it! Here are some shots of the scene:
And here is my bounty:
They just need to soften for 3 days. Then they can be refrigerated for up to 7 days or frozen and they will keep for a year. In case you are wondering, they don’t lose their taste at all after being frozen. Last year, we ate peaches almost all winter (I bought two boxes from them) and they tasted like summer.
If you want to get some of this yummy goodness for yourself, click
here for the tour stop locations. You’re welcome. They are in Ellicott City today. Hmmm….I may go and grab one more box.
We are going to eat some and I will vacuum seal and freeze the rest.
So that’s it y’all! Until next time…
Happy farming!
So glad to get some relief from the heat. Glad to see your garden kept right on growing! Peaches and pecans with cream sounds really yummy, although I've not had much luck growing peaches. A peach truck sounds really good to me.
Hi, Leigh! Check out the link with the locations if you are on the east coast. As always, thank you for reading!