Summer Slowdown

We've had some hot hot weather this summer. First, it got super hot (105) in mid to late June. Then it cooled down for a bit, even tried to rain a little, then went back up to the 90s. With this sort of heat, it's hard to do much. In fact, this is when I'm reminding myself that you don't really garden in July and August. All you can do is water and harvest. The crops at the farm are doing well. My crops at home are struggling more.

One surprising crop was the buckwheat. It grows super fast and doesn't mind the heat at all. We are using it for green manure/chicken food, and we had to move fast to get the chickens to it in time! We built more frame pieces so they can eat half a row at a time. I will plant more soon, because I can get another whole round before the fall crops go in the ground. But this time, I'll stagger planting so they don't all come ripe at once. Speaking of ripe, here's a lovely big harvest of tomatoes.

The tomatoes were in sector 3, and got some shade. They seemed to prefer this. The peppers in 2 are ok but could use more shade. For next year, I plan to plant flowers again, but farther from the crops, and on the west side to shade them more. These Indigo Roses look like jewels.

I baked them with pesto and parmesan and served them on pita chips. They went fast! I also made plum cobblers that were well received.

Jae's mom is in town, and they visited the farm. I guess they don't get this kind of variety and flavor of tomatoes in Sweden.

We went to La Salles for the Thursday Happy Hour music. Apparently this is where all the old folks go to get their groove on. This lady in yellow was having a blast. She was even dancing with the poles by the stage. Rick said, "If those fishnets come off, we're leaving!" It was pretty hilarious.