After two or three weeks of intense heat and continued stress from various beetles, the garden is beginning to lose some of its luster. We will clear out the bolting lettuce, preserve a large quantity of kale and chard and make one final fall-oriented planting over the next two weeks. The garden frame that was planted with lettuce and kale mid-June will be ready for harvest soon.
A second crop of strawberries is beginning to ripen. I picked one ripe strawberry last night. One garden frame of strawberry plants provided barely enough fruit for fresh eating (maybe 100 berries). We will have to plant another frame or two next year so that we have enough for preserves (though the thought just came to me that these are first year plants, we may have a larger harvest next year, so just one more frame).
The woodchuck has been feasting on many young squash flowers and fruit, but there are three buttercup and two acorn squash maturing. I will have to protect them better next year. Five more pickling cucumbers were harvested this weekend. We are averaging 2-4 ripe cherry tomatoes per day from three plants. I saw the first almost ripe Roma tomato this morning.
Japanese beetles returned with a vengeance, however, they were concentrated on the wild grape vine that is growing on the Rose of Sharon. I collected another 40 or so. Their most common defense mechanism is to curl up and fall of the leaf they are sitting on, which makes it relatively easy to catch them in a container of rubbing alcohol.
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