August 6th, 2012 
Rick 
Be sure to check out yesterdays post on seed saving, if you haven’t already. We our holding our first give away of some Vates Kale seeds and you need to read the post for details on how to win!!
Another hot week with no relief in sight. Temperatures for the next 7 days are going to continue to be 97 or hotter!! Whew, I can’t wait for fall!! I’m afraid this hot weather is really going to effect our tomato crop. It seems like most of our plants have stopped growing and stopped setting fruit because of the heat!!
Then onions are much smaller this year, I think this is caused by the stress of all this heat!!
Another casualty of the heat are the onions. I dug them all on Saturday and most were very small compared to last year. It seemed like I couldn’t keep them moist enough this year. I haven’t weighted them yet but I would imagine we will be half of last years harvest, maybe even less than that!! Ouch!
This is the first of the winter beds we have planted!
This week was the first of August, that means it’s time to get busy planting the fall and winter crops. We spent an while on Saturday getting this bed ready and then planting it with carrots. This will be the bulk of our winter carrots this year an this bed will be covered with a cold frame.
The fall peas are up!
You can see our fall peas are coming along. I have them in a lot earlier this year so we should get a good crop. The top of this bed is filled with carrots that are just starting to germinate.
Now to this weeks harvest!
Tuesdays harvest
The pepper plants are giving us 2 or three nice peppers every couple of days now. On the left is the first Marketmoore cucumbers. They are an heirloom slicing cucumber that we really love. More beans and a few tomatoes as well.
Our three tiny cabbages
The heat kept our cabbages from developing as well. I left these in as long as I could but the heads never really got very big. I needed this space for fall crops so I finally decided to pull them this week.
The last of the broccoli side shoots with beans and peppers
I needed more space for fall crops so we pulled out the broccoli plants on Saturday. I cut the last of the side shoots while I was at it along with a couple of little peppers and more beans.
A Zucchini on top and several more cucumbers for pickles
Also on Saturday we picked another zucchini. The plants look terrible but they keep putting off a fruit about once a week so I guess I will leave them for now. Most of these cucumbers are destined for pickles. I’m trying a new bread and butter fridge pickle this week. I will post the recipe on Thursday.
A surprise leek!
As I was digging up the onions I came across this surprise. It’s a leek. I didn’t plant this so the start must have been mixed in accidentally with the onion starts. I wish I’d have seen it sooner and I could have mounded it up and blanched the stem!!
Here’s this weeks totals:
Basil – .20 lbs
Zucchini – 1 lbs
Cucumbers – 2.75 lbs
Broccoli – .50 lbs
Peppers – 1 lbs
Beans – .75 lbs
Tomatoes – 1 lbs
Cabbage – 2.25 lbs
Green onion – .25 lbs
Strawberries – .25 lbs
Leeks – .20 lbs
Eggs – 28
Total – 10.15 lbs
Our annual total is now 134.15. We will be linking up this week with Daphne’s Dandelions for the Monday Harvest Report, and an Oregon Cottage for the Tuesday Garden Party.
Posted in 
Tags: 
Heat and drought, not good for the garden. I am having many of the same issues as you are.
Very nice harvest! Love cabbages and onions, and don’t you love volunteer surprises?
Nice harvest, you are doing well despite the heat. Although they are adequately watered, the heat has also shut down my tomatoes and peppers. Anyway, you have the right idea, onward and upward with the fall crops and hope we get a break.
We’ve been fortunate to escape the heat that so much of the country is experiencing this year, but drought is an normal summer condition here, we actually had a trace of rain the other day which was very weird. I know how disappointing it is to have smaller than usual harvests, last year we had a population explosion of rats and they decimated a lot of my vegetables. I hope your fall harvests turn out to be abundant! What you are pulling in now looks great in spite of the weather challenges.
I think most gardeners are suffering from the weather this year. You still have a nice lot of things to enjoy. Wonder what the fall weather will be like! Nancy
I am in the same boat with tomatoes. I think mine may be done bearing. This would be the earliest this has ever happened here.
My tomatoes stalled out on setting fruit because our weather was consistently too cool (same affect just opposite cause). We got a brief warm up and the plants were flowering profusely so I am hoping they will put fruit on and get busy before the cool fall rains come and put a halt to the whole show.
I need to get moving on my fall plantings too. I have a bunch of direct seeded items to get going and just could not get motivated to dig garden beds in the heat last weekend.