Producing produce

We got our first red tomatoes over the weekend.

Some were Sprite grape tomatoes, some were Sweet Million cherry tomatoes and only one was a full-size Siletz that was cracked and only half red. Nancy wanted to throw it away, but I am hoping it will ripen the rest of the way in the garage and I can eat it on a sandwich. We really have only a dozen of the Sprite and Sweet Million, not enough for a meal, but it just nice to get anything at this point.

We have been getting a lot of cucumbers since the middle of last week. They don't rate  quite at the same level as tomatoes, but I love having them. Summer squash also are producing prolifically. 

We just barely had a couple of quarts of fresh peas for when Nancy's sister from Florida arrived to visit. She usually comes around Fourth of July and loves having lots of peas, but didn't come until last week. I planted the peas in the shady section of the vegetable garden, and the cool and wet June probably helped them last that long. But they have all dried up and are done.

Granddaughter Alana, age 2,  was visiting from Medford, Mass. I had heard tales of her going out and eating all of the blueberries on Zach and Marah's two blueberry bushes and then taking blueberries that they had received from their CSA shipment and taking them outside to eat beside the blueberry bushes she earlier picked clean. We haven't figured out why she did that.

Anyway, Alana and I went up to the full-sun blueberry bushes at my mother-in-law's house – Alana's great-grandmother – and we picked blueberries. My mother-in-law and I picked three pints to share. Alana would cover the bottom of her pint box and then eat them, cover it again and eat them. We don't know how many she actually ate, but at least we didn't have to pick them for her. The blueberry bushes at Nancy's and my house are in the shade and not quite ready yet.

I am going to have to water the vegetable garden. All the rain we had through June and July, and none for all of August. Ideally I would like one good steady three-hour rain giving an inch of water, but I will haul hose to the vegetables rather than wish back the constant rain of earlier this summer.

I've rambled on long enough.

Sunday's column was about growing garlic.