I'm here for the tomatoes

First BLT on Saturday- Stupice and home grown lettuce (on a home made plate). I had to skimp on the mayo because it was the end of the jar. It was still a really good sandwich. So far I've had production from Champagne Cherry, Coyote, Stupice, Peacevine and Matts Wild Cherry. I have picked 2 Black Cherry, and 2 Red Zebra one should be ready later today or tomorrow and the first beefsteak Berkeley Tie Die Pink. It's catfaced and only ripening on one side. Hopefully it will be ready later this week.

I had to pull out one of the Cocozelle zucchini because of SVB. I have 1 Cocozelle, 1 crook neck yellow and 1 golden bush left. The golden bush is the only one to have not produced yet.

Woe is me!

Veggie garden is being assaulted on 2 fronts: squash vine borers and powdery mildew! That coupled with the green tomatoes has left me very discouraged. So far we have had 3 ripe (peacevine) cherry tomatoes 4 more are ready to come in. I harvested 1 black beauty zucchini and another cucumer and a green serrano- the serrano wasn't hot at all. We had a couple of cool nights (down in the low 50's) and the garden is starting to look a little sad. The powdery mildew seems to have taken off over night. Yesterday was a very warm 90'F and it's back in the high 80's today. I woke up this morning and the powdery mildew was everywhere! I cut a lot of leaves off the squash and zucchini and sprayed the rest with a milk solution to try to contain the powdery mildew. I've also cut out 5 squash vine borers from 2 plants (the only 2 plants that have produced thus far!) I'm thinking they are so stressed out now they will probably kick it. I hate squash vine borers! One plant that had them was planted early and not covered, the other was planted later and covered with a floating row cover until the week of July 4-obviously that didn't work well!

I broke down and went to the farmers market today and bought tomatoes. The ones in the garden don't seem to be producing much fruit and the fruit that is there isn't growing very fast and it's not ripening at all. I got some heirlooms, some hybrids and a ton of cherries for drying in the oven. I haven't tried them yet.

Good news: Winchester Cathedral, Gruss an Aachen and Sweet promise all have buds. Zinnias and cosmos are blooming-tiny flowers -it's weird! Veronica has sent up a second flush and the cone flowers are going bonkers.

I'm not feeling the garden today so I decided to share a picture of Watkins Glen taken on Aug 1 when DH and I went down there for a hike. A beautiful state park at the south end of Seneca Lake,

Progress...?

I think I may hav 2 potential zucchini's-it looks like 2 zucchini plants each have a female flower, fingers are crossed! It also looks like I may finally get some tomatoes to ripen-one of the cherry tomato clusters seems to be changing from green to an orangey color. I believe it is the peacevine tomato. Most of the seeds I have planted are sprouting.

On the flower front-Sweet Promise and Winchester Cathedral have buds again. Eden has little worms munching on it-I have been squashing them. My "Cut and Come Again"Zinnias are finally blooming-the flowers are tiny and rather pathetic looking. I really don't have much luck with annual seeds!