With recent the summer weather, our garden has been growing fast. The tomato plants are doing really well, even the ones I tried to salvage from the early frost we had. The plants from the initial batch may be short and stubby, but they look healthy and already have tomatoes developing. The other three plants we bought after the frost (just in case), are already caged up and about four feet tall!

This year we planted peas for the first time and they’re just  about ready to pick. We also added lettuce, spinach and beets this year. We’ve been harvesting the lettuce and spinach over the last couple weeks, but the beets need more time. Since I haven’t been bug-spraying that area of the garden, I’ve found that some of the spinach leaves have unwelcome guests. The lettuce doesn’t seem to be affected by the same critter, so next year we’ll probably stick to lettuce so we don’t have to spray as much.

One of our two zucchini plants died due to a root maggot, but the other one seems to be doing OK. The butternut squash also looks fine, but upon closer inspection I found some clusters of tiny eggs. Then I noticed two squash bugs (I think?) in the act of producing more eggs! So I ended up doing one application of pesticide to all areas of our garden, just to make sure what we’ve got continues to thrive.

Speaking of thriving, our strawberries are doing great. Shoots are coming off all the plants , which I then corral towards areas of the garden bed that are empty. I figure by the end of the summer, the entire bed will be covered! They’ve also been producing a handful of strawberries every few days. And since the plants are larger with bigger leaves, the fruit remains covered, so they haven’t been falling prey to the birds in the area.

What about our fruit trees? Well, this year we had a frost while most of them were in blossom, so it looks like we won’t get any pluots or apricots. The pear and plum trees are also kind of thin. The only two we should see a lot of are apples and nectarines. This is a good thing as nectarines are one of our favorites (pictured).