Morning Glories and setting suns

These are the morning glories that we started in February. Only four of the nine plants survived, but I am told that they will self-seed from this point forward. The length of daylight is getting noticeably shorter. The last two evenings I was mowing the grass until I could barely see and it was only 8:30PM when I came in. Officially, the sun sets at 8:00PM tonight. I was surprised to find that the length of daylight is about 3 minutes shorter each day (the length of daylight that we lose each day increases up until Autumn Equinox where it tops out at 2m 53s). By the end of September the sun will be setting at 7PM (September Sunsets). I had better setup some lights outside if I plan to do any gardening in the evenings this Fall.

Tomato tally

It feels like summer only lasted about a week here in Western New York. I am not sure we even made it past 90 degrees, but that is just fine with me. It is much more pleasant to work outside when the temperature is below 80. Most people that I talk with are saying it has been a tough year for their tomatoes with all of the rain and cooler temperatures. I think we are doing better than most. The cherry tomatoes are reaching well beyond the 7 foot trellises that I built and are filled with ripening fruit from top to bottom. The larger tomatoes are also looking lush and producing lots of fruit. I don't know whether this is due to the superior qualities of the Mel's Mix (square foot gardening soil mix) or something else, but the tomatoes are what are giving me the greatest pleasure from the garden these days. We started picking cherry tomatoes at the beginning of August, maybe four cups up to the 16th, then we picked six cups of cherry tomatoes on the 16th, four cups during that week and another four cups this past weekend (this is from about 8 plants). We have picked about 4 of the larger tomatoes at this point. The lettuce stand that I started in July has been rather disappointing, with scanty growth. I think it is the seed variety or perhaps the variety is intended to be planted more closely together. Fortunately, we have been receiving donations from other gardeners and CSA members who have gone on vacation and have no need for their farm share (including the Squash People). We also have another lettuce stand developing and quite a few parsley plants. Next year, I think that I will focus more on growing garden greens, carrots and beets and less on the cole crops. As soon as I have time to build another frame, I will be planting garlic for next year.

Attack of the squash people

Last Friday we harvested some more greens. We have been picking cherry tomatoes for the past couple of weeks. It looks like the big tomatoes need another couple of weeks to ripen. I didn't plant any zucchini or crookneck squash this year, knowing that they are always in overabundance. Coincidentally, I was given a book of poetry yesterday and the first poem that I opened to is titled "Attack of the Squash People". Queen-Anne's lace, flax and purple loosestrife were blooming along the roadsides on the way to the farm Saturday morning (white, purple and pink). Interestingly, only the flax is native to our land. This was also the first day that we noticed the sound of the cicada's, a sure sign of the approaching end of Summer. I picked up some garlic from the farm stand and will be planting that as soon as I can get another garden frame built. This morning is the first time I walked outside and felt like summer had arrived. You know, where the low temperature the previous evening is in the seventies instead of the fifties or low sixties? I believe that our July was the coolest and wettest on record.