The gardens this year have largely been a disappointment. Crops like the potatoes, cucumbers, zuchinni, butternuts, pumpkins, and beans have either refused to fruit or curled up and died due to that extreme heatwave we had. But the aubergine, beetroot and capsicum all in the drought resistant frog garden are doing very well.
Now that it is cooler, and it is delightfully cooler with the temperatures for the next ten days forecast to be in the eighties we have begun to replant. Once again gardening is a joy and ever so slowly little showers of rain are popping in to visit. We had a squall that arrived when we were out yesterday evening. All the windows and doors were open as usual and we came home to a rain soaked bed and puddles on the kitchen floor. Lamps were blown over, every window sill on that side was cleared as a few screens were blown in but luckily the mattress has a sheepskin cover so it was not soaked through. No-one minded mopping that rain up!! It was a good drop!
Anyway lets have a wee look at the garden. These gorgeous things are Post Indicator Valves. John brings me rocks from work sometimes or he brings me fire hydrants, some of which are very old and the other day he brought me another one of these. The one in the foreground is quite old. They have been made from the same mould for almost a hundred years but are all dated. I have no idea what these do so don’t even begin to ask me. I just like the colour and their lovely strong shapes in the gardens. 
Some men bring flowers!! 
The tomatoes are the best crop so far this year. The crockpot has been going almost 24 hours a day for a few weeks now, making summer sauce, and there is more to come. I make the sauce in tiny batches with whatever I pick that day, last night as I wrote 4 jars of summer sauce were jiggling in their water bath. Wonderful. 
My grapes are rocking along. They don’t mind it dry. These are the Vidal Blanc, they are the wine grapes and we will have a great crop this year. Touch wood. (We should call this blog Touchwood-I have you guys doing it with me so often!!) There were almost no Japanese Beetles out here this year and this has made a fantastic difference to the grapes. There is a marked lack of bugs this year. I have not seen any mosquitos.
How about this for optimism. Remember how Our John put his tomatoes in early predicting an early spring? Now I find he has started reseeding summer crops in the middle of summer. Is he looking for a long summer or a long mild autumn?
I hope so. The late summer crops are being sown too. Cabbage and brocolli mainly. More lettuce soon and cilantro and beans. My summer beans have been rubbish so far. May as well pop in some more and see what happens.
Good morning. I have a rain gauge now, thanks to my kindly neighbour, and yesterday evening it had measured 3/10ths of an inch, with another tiny shower during the night. Another little gift. We are very cool today with a high of 77. I had planned to take in the rest of the honey this week but as I don’t have an extractor, I need the honey to drip out into the buckets and for that to happen it needs to be hot! Brilliant problem! But the cool is perfect cheese making weather. And so stress free.
We will wait for the honey. I love this cooler summer weather.
You all have a lovely day.
celi
what we were doing exactly a year ago – sustainable, what does it mean?. I am not very fond of labels. Being organic, or vegetarian, or bio dynamic or natural or whatever. I wriggle under the constraints of other peoples rules. Every one of these clubs has a list of don’ts. I do prefer to just do what we can and roll with life. Quietly discover who we are. I try to explain this here. If this were rewritten in a more intelligible way this should probably be in my opening chapter of the Farmy book. See what you think.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
62 responses to “The Kitchen’s Garden Garden!”
Your tomatoes look amazing, Celi! Is good to have a break from all this heat. Here at Madrid we are having like 41º (105 ºF) we can barely move…
Good morning, have a lovely day 🙂
Good luck with the second planting – I surprised the potatoes died. The grapes and tomatoes look lovely 😉
Hooray for some rain and a bit cooler weather! You’ve certainly put in your time with the extremes, so a break must feel heavenly! Our heat is here now, and with a vengeance, but because it was so late in arriving my tomatoes have been very disappointing. I’m still hopeful we’ll catch up, but I’ve waited all year for a taste of really fresh, and I go out every day after work and just look for evidence of a bumper crop! Not yet! You encourage me, though, Celi, with looking forward and just continuing to sow. I don’t think I’ve ever been as tuned in to it all as since I started reading your posts! You are an education for me! Enjoy your weekend…and let the cooling trend hold! 🙂 Debra
The tomatoes and grapes look wonderful! What a nice crop you’ve had.
Your grapes look great. Rain at night and sunny days are as good as it gets!
My 15 pots of Gerbera daisies are refusing to rebloom but I’ve fertilized them and am hoping for some new blooms with the cooler weather. I got carried away this spring. But when I read the WORK you put in on your farmy day after day, Cecelia, I feel embarrassed to complain. (the pots are heavy and I’ve moved them in and out of the heat so many times a day –Eeks!)
Your post indicator valves are a nice, colorful addition to your garden. Unusual-looking tomatoes, I’m so used to “round.” Glad it is cooler there for you. It’s not as hot here as it was, but still creeps up to 90s.
I don’t think I’ll be able to plant anything for this fall with our move and we could really use it. We’ll have to wait and see. I do plan on trying to dig up some of the pepper and tomato plants and put them in a hoop house. They may not make it but I’ll try anyway! Love the fire hydrants.
Love the Post Indicator Valves. They’re gorgeous. This weekend I take down the kids’ snap-pea trellis, compost the bolted lettuce, and harvest the last of the beans. I’m not quite as brave as Your John with mid-season planting. I’m certain we’ll have snow up here by October. But the Nantes carrots should be ready for the kids to pull while they’re playing outside next week. I love watching them bound around like Bugs Bunny, carrot tops hanging out the sides of their mouths 🙂
I have to say that I’d be quite happy and charmed if Dave gave me Post Indicator Valves for my garden…they are way cool! 🙂 We’ve had torrential rains, and tomorrow will be cooler, yay. I have some little baby tomatoes in pots and we’ll see if they ever color. Mostly the herbs have done well in my garden and pots this year, not much else.
cooler here in Indiana also, actually have my fuzzy slippers on. the temps are in mid sixties and a big breeze. we need the rain but not in our beds. LOL, glad u r trying the garden again, may have better weather second time around
I thought about you when watching the news last night. It spoke of the record heat in the USA this summer, and the draught, particularly in Illinois. So sad to see those lovely vegetables drying up.
Your attempt at late summer gardening is interesting; I’ve heard of doing that for cool weather crops. and hope there is enough growing time for you to benefit from this attempt.
How lovely that you have a few cooler days ahead Celi. Enjoy planting – I am sure you will have a better crop this time around.
Have a happy weekend.
🙂 Mandy
Just lovely to hear the rain is here and crops are beginning to flourish. Those tomatoes look amazing, Celi 🙂
Good luck, Celi, with the second planting. As you know, I don’t have much of a garden and this year was not exactly my best. That’s OK. Next year will be better, no doubt about it. Big Dog is becoming the “new” TonTon, finding a way to get into at least one photo per post.