Dog days of August...or should I say FOG days?

It's been really cold this month so far with only 1 decent week to be had over 20C. There are tons and tons of green tomatoes maturing in all 3 gardens, and only a few starting to change to their mature colours. I'd've expected by now that I'd be swimming in ripe tomatoes but that is -so- not the case. I can only hope now they will all ripen before the first frosts coming in september. Our average first frost around here is Sept. 7th, so I may have to look into covering the plants for protection.

I know for sure my gourd plant will not have the fruits ripen in time, so I'll leave it outside as long as I can and then bring it in the house under grow lights to mature the gourds. If all goes well with that, I intend to cure the gourds and make them into Shekeres, an African percussion instrument. Any extras I make will be for sale.

Ok so here's the garden roundup report!

Front Yard: the landlord's groundskeeper nipped off one of the growing tips of one of the cucumber plants with the lawnmower. God help that person if I find them, they are going to get a strip taken out of them for pushing the mower so close to the plants, and for mowing right after we'd put fertiliser on the lawn as the little pellets got flung everywhere! How frustrating!

Anyway, the cucumbers are starting to produce, the White ones are a bit behind the ones that were started in the house surprisingly enough. And even more surprising I've had 2 long green cukes off the one from in the house. There are plenty of flowers on the white ones indeed and I've cut several cukes from them on sunday for pickling.

Tomatoes: one of the branches on the right-hand Tiny Tim plant fell over and snapped since the fruit got too heavy and I didn't catch it in time. I had to cut that branch off and took it inside and hung it upside down to attempt to ripen it as much as possible. If they stay green, i'll fry up some mini fried green tomatoes. Otherwise the Tiny Tim plants are -really- loaded with fruit. I am very impressed at how well they do for a compact plant. My plants grew to about 2 feet tall and about 1.5 feet wide.

The Bush beefsteak tomatoes in the corner of the yard are producing as well. These are interesting because of the confined space I put them into and the 3 plants to a big pot. They seem to need more fertiliser than the other pots largely due to there being 3 plants in there. I will be measuring the harvested fruit and counting how many each produces. the foliage has adapted to the small space and appears pretty compact. The other pot of tomatoes with the yellow ones and the christmas grape are also doing well and have each set several trusses of fruit though the christmas grape has set fewer trusses. I have topped each of these vine plants and continue to prune the suckers to encourage the plant to develop the trusses it has and the remaining flowers.

The spices are doing great and I will harvest them at the end of the season, dry them and generally measure their output. I didn't thin them at all so there's lots of short plants. I will try growing some in individual pots to see how large the plants really can get.

Millwoods garden: We harvested all the beets since there seems to be a slug infestation going on eating them up. I also pulled the parmex carrots and silverskin pearl onions. the beans are still producing though we've gotten most of them picked now so I think the plants are starting to wind down as are the peas. the peppers here are really only just getting going now with tiny peppers visible. The tomatoes on the plot all have green tomatoes and some are showing signs of changing to their mature colour now too. The holy mole pepper plant has a few large peppers on it that are almost ripe and a neat chocolate brown in colour.

The zucchinis are coming along and producing zucchini, I am harvesting at least 1-2 per week. The plants were not planted all at the same time, so the smaller ones have begun to produce yet. The real impressive plant in the garden this year are the pumpkin plants. we have about 8 or so very nice looking pumpkins hanging on the trellis. The only thing to mar it is that i discovered what looks like powdery mildew on one of the leaves. I cut that leaf off and got rid of it but i don't think that really got rid of the issue as it has been so wet and cool recently.

The cucumbers in this plot are starting to come along as well and I have harvested a few. the parsnips are looking great and I hope they yield a decent crop.

Camrose Garden: It's a jungle out there! The squash plants are doing their best to overtake all the space around them and above them!. They have taken over the pathway between them and the peppers completely. Now I know which plants need 3'sq to exist and which ones are going to travel all around. There are about 10-12 pumpkins I think that I counted, and numerous white and yellow spaghetti and winter squash as well. The tomatoes are all doing well and only just starting to get a few change colour. I picked almost all the beets and thinned the carrots. the peas and beans are still producing, and the cucumbers are going crazy now as is the Zucchini plant. Even the sunflowers have finally developed heads and will bloom soon. The corn we thought would be ripe by now, but it isn't yet after testing it. The strawberries are sending out runners and rooting well next to the parsnips.

Anyway, more later in the form of current pictures I took that still need to be uploaded to the blog!