Gardening update...

I haven't discussed my gardening for a while, so I thought I'd bring the world up to speed on how things turned out...

From the latest snow on record, to a summer that never really got off the ground, this has been a really crummy year weatherwise. I have two tomato plants that are bursting with tomatoes (one roma, one golden), but neither has produced a single ripe fruit. I'm beginning to lose heart, as today was the first time in over a week that the sun has come out, and the forecast is calling for rain and unseasonably cool temps over the weekend. I'm putting out the call: if anyone knows a way to speed up the ripening process when ol' Mother Nature has let you down, I'd like to hear it. If they'll lighten up in color, even a bit, I'll try ripening them indoors. I also read that you can hang them roots and all, indoors, and they'll finish ripening (you're supposed to pick the fruit before it gets a deep color because you don't want the ripe fruit falling off and bruising). If all else fails, I'll have to look up recipes using green tomatoes.

We had lettuce and spinach in early spring. I'm thinking it's about time to get some seeds going again for a fall crop.

Carrots never worked out well, and I'm not really sure why. They put on a lot of green, but didn't develop much root (ie. carrot).

The radishes grew well, but were spicier then we liked in spite of picking early or late, large or small. We got two rounds of radishes, and let the last one flower - pretty little white flowers.

Snap peas did great, in fact they produced more than we were able to consume. They were a very rewarding crop to start from seed.

Of the 20 corn seeds I planted, only 5 sprouted (or were left behind by the squirrels and birds), and four of those produced ears. Due to the lack of warm weather, the ears are a little on the small side - I think only three will be edible.

We planted everbearing strawberry plants, 18 of them, and they put on nice foliage. Not much in the way of berries - quite small, and little production. I need to cut back the runners sooner, I think. Hopefully they'll perform better next year.

We had only one pepper plant sprout from seed. I planted it in the garden and it grew a couple of inches in height and never did anything else. Just stopped growing. Again, I think it was an issue of unfavorable weather conditions.

Surprise of surprises, even in spite of the mild summer, my walla walla sweet onions did pretty well! We harvested our first one this afternoon. They're smallish (about the size of a raquetball), with a strong bite to them, but a sweetness as well. We diced up half of one and added it to some guacamole we were making - quite tasty.

So that's the late summer report on Adventures in Gardening on the Dolphin Valley Academy campus!