Progress At A Slower Pace
 

Yesterday was putter day. I groomed the mini tomatoes on the porch, pruning off spent branches, cutting a little funk out here and there, fertilized, etc. They are just now starting to set more cherry tomatoes as the 90+ temps have faded away. There were plenty of flowers but just heat-killed pollen, I guess.

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These two are really compact unlike the rangy Whippersnappers next to them. That's Red Robin on the left and Jochelos on the right. Very tight and dense plants. There's a third one, Lille Lise, somewhere on the tables and I'm going to try keeping those three indoors all winter under lights.

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The summer row of big bucket tomatoes on pallets has given way to a few assorted plants. In the back are a Rio Grande tomato started in June for fall and two different Roselles. In the front are the old Millionaire eggplant and a newer one, also started in June, plus the two rhubarbs I started from seed.

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The carrots and turnips have both popped up in the last day or two. The cooler weather and little passing showers helped that. The next round of brassica plants went out to the porch to get used to real life and will be planted out on the 19th. Gardening life is proceeding at a slower pace and I don't mind that at all. ;)

I am hoping to get some of my greens planted in the next few days and within a week I will have to pot up some of my broccoli, cabbage, and etc. Hopefully some of that stuff will be ready to go into the garden within a few weeks.

I got somewhere between 7 1/2 and 10 inches of rain for sure over two days due to the storm. Not sure which because my gauge overflowed the second day after being emptied the day before. Going strictly by the gauge it was over 7 1/2 inches but I had three different buckets out in the garden with between 9 and 11 inches of water in them so I'm pretty sure we got at least 8 inches. One good thing about living on the top of a hill is good drainage and with raised beds some of them will be okay to work up in no time. I just wish I had gotten a bit of this rain a few months back when we were really suffering for water but that's part of gardening.

I still have some tomatoes out in the garden with green fruit on them but almost all of them have already become infected with TYLCV so I don't know how much if any of them will give me an edible tomato. The heavy rain and wind did reduce the number of whiteflies in the garden so that will help some if they stay away. My five cucumber plants seem to have weathered the wind and rain fairly well as have my two short rows of beans so I am hoping they will produce this fall.

Best of all it is now cooler. Today it didn't even get to 80 for a high. Tomorrow it is supposed to be back in the low to mid 80's but that is pretty nice and the long range 10 day forecast is for some days in the 70s and some nights even down to the low 50s. Perfect for fall planting. This is the first time in a long time that we have seen temps this low this early in the fall season.

Bill