Perhaps second only to my beloved hockey Devils signing offensive superstar Ilya Kovalchuk, is the actual appearance of tomatoes in my garden. OK, I lead a sheltered life. But the arrival of fruit on my tomatoes plants has come as a modest-sized surprise. The spring was wet, the summer was late and while Seattle did have a couple of stretches with significant sun and heat, I never expected tomatoes -- green or actually ripe ones.
So the jury is still out on whether they will ripen. We'll need a late summer deep into September, says Mr. Not-Exactly-Sure-What-He's-Doing.
The bigger piece of confusion for me has been the performance of my squash, summer and fall varieties. I've had a ton of blossoms as the photo can attest, but nary a sign of fruit there. Ditto with the lemon cucumbers until today when the first inkling of a cuke is apparent. I think I may have under-watered, especially during the hot stretches.
I yanked out the snow pea stalks about a week ago as they seemed to be suffering mightily from both lack of water and their own height/weight. I'll definitely plant them again next year and have taller supports at the ready so they don't bend in half curtailing what had been a flying start to my inaugural growing season.
Lastly (but not leastly), the radishes did OK. Like my dad said, probably nothing to brag about there as they are easy to grow. Definitely didn't space the seeds well enough nor thin well enough once the plants showed. The ones with room to grow actually produced some nice tangy radishes, the rest must have been fighting with each other in the soil. Lots to learn.
