Sunday, Sept 6th 2010

Garden items:
Weather: Has been low to mid forties for low, low sixties to mid seventies for high. Starting to feel like fall and plants in general are starting to respond to shorter daylight hours and colder temps by slowing any production they might have and showing crisp outer leaves, yellowing of leaves, etc.
Ground cherries: grew very low to the ground this year, in some instances branching less than one inch above the ground. Surprisingly, producing good fruit now (quite a quantity of it) though I wonder if there will be time for it to ripen. Getting a few cherries here and there with Luken, lots more on the plants. Seems the plants last year in containers did better than the plants are doing this year in the garden, but again, it has been a very hard year weather wise.
Tomatoes: Got a horrific start this year due to rain all through the first 3 weeks of June. About every other plant died/had to be replanted. Lots of green tomatoes finally, hardly any ripe ones. Not even many ripe ones on the Sweet Million grape tomato we got from Mrs. Brown's. Think it will be a year for green tomato salsa and pickles again.
Beans: Did well this year, surprisingly. Not sure why - immediate neighbor says his were all eaten as fast as they sprouted (much like ours were last year). Found the Dragon Tongue beans (BUSH! Surprise!) to be quite tasty even at the stage when they were very, VERY large (didn't pick until quite late). The Kentucky Wonder Pole beans are prolific and we're happy for that.
Squash/pumpkins: All vining things (summer squash, winter squash, pumpkins and cucumbers got a VERY slow start. Finally getting some summer squash (did little patty pans this year) from most plants at last. The pumpkins I started intentionally are not thriving, though there is one fruit on one of them I doubt it will mature. I had 3 self starts of pumpkin in the compost pile (from last year's Connecticut Field pumpkins that I threw into compost this spring) but they're likewise slow. I think the pattypan plants at least would be quite vigorous given normal spring conditions. Strangely enough the Waltham butternut really seems to suffer a general 'failure to thrive' this year, I'm not sure why. But it's immediate neighbor the Delicata squash has finally started producing MANY fruit, and I have hopes that some will mature before frost hits.
Potatoes: Purchased seed potatoes from Marchies (a red variety and a russet of some kind) and the All Blue variety from the local IGA. For the second year in a row I am finding the red and russets (the reds in particular) to be far less susceptible to scab. The blues are quite bad this year with scab (though in fairness the reds are worse than they were last year, as well). Also finding holes in some tubers that the pill bugs crawl into. I spotted many many slugs as we (Luken and I) harvested, and I am wondering if the covering with newspaper/cardboard to keep light off the tubers provides a great slug environment (and the slugs are what eats holes in potatoes). I had two separate patches this year: one in the garden (all purchased seed potatoes planted quite early in the year) and one patch on the NE corner of the house (really just a bare piece of ground dug up with the help of Aki :) ). The patch on the NE side of the house was seeded with last year's scabby old All Blue leftovers, so I would expect those will produce more scabby tubers, but I have yet to dig any and check.
Onions: Though we had onion maggot problems in the past, we seem to have gotten past that, and had a good year growing both white and purple onions. Got the sets from Pink Grizzly and was quite satisfied.
Beets: Another thing that did exceptionally well this year.
Cherries: Flathead cherries were carried at local IGA from probably end of July through 3rd week in August. Also purchased some on a trip to Bigfork, found roadside stands still open when we went up there August 25th even. Will try jam from them this year.