A Nice Hot Summer and Tomatoes For All!

It's been a hot summer and I do enjoy the hot weather. Not something we get enough of in NH. The bearded dragons have loved getting outdoors more than usual. The heat is just right for them. Some garden crops have thrived with the hot weather including the tomatoes and corn. I'm sure we've had more tomatoes this summer than ever before and they've all been ripening all of a sudden. I've frozen, some, set out some for fresh eating and given some to friends. The chickens and ducks get any with bites out of them (tomato hornworms invaded for awhile) or bad spots.

Tomatoes for all, even the birds get some!

Sun Bathing Beardies

Best ever corn crop!

In addition to the hot weather, which resulted in a drought for the first part of summer, we've also had heavy rains and high humidity. The rain hasn't been sprinkles or showers but a deluge of water will suddenly pour down for an hour here and there. This has created tough conditions for some crops including some of our fruit trees. We won't be getting a lot of apples this year it seems. Some of the trees, even very old- been here longer than we have trees look a bit sad and not much production. Broccoli and cauliflower have done very poorly this year too.

In between have been the squashes, beans and a few other crops which have done okay, not great but not terrible. Not sure if it's weather related, predator related or something I have done wrong or haven't done that I should have.

I'm going to make some changes for next year, try some new things and maybe focus more closely on less types of crops. I know I want to have success with melons, both cantaloupe and watermelon. This won't be easy in our climate but I'll try. I also want to have a crop of popcorn, I think I planted that too late this year and too little of it, plus one particular chick would walk through the fence when he was small enough and peck at the little popcorn plants until I blocked that area off better.

This little urchin was eating my young popcorn plants until I blocked them from him with cages. He eventually outgrew the ability to slip through the garden fence and grew into a handsome silkie rooster.

I thought that when summer started and we had a good looking set of vegetable and fruit plants and trees that this would be a great year but it turned out to be great for some plants and not good at all for others. Onward to next year and to trying some new ideas.