On Mon, 30 May 2016 18:39:53 -0500, George Shirley
wrote:

Picked a small bucket of sweet chilies, eggplant, kale, two or three
sorts of lettuce and one lone cucumber. Had a good bit of the pickings
in our dinner salad this evening.

Black crowders are making like crazy and the vines have climbed the
trellis and I'm now working them in and out. Tomatoes are a bit slow in
ripening but that is expected with all the rain and overcast we've been
getting.

Figs are getting larger every day and it looks, I hope, to be a good
harvest. The pears are about the size of a quarter and looking good.
This will be our first pear harvest on that tree if they make it. The
coloring now is a russet and we hope they are tasty. Supposedly good for
eating out of hand and canning both. Tree looks really healthy but I'm
doing my best to keep pruning off the "rain" limbs so the tree stays
open to sunlight.

The blueberries aren't doing well at all, will have to do some research
to see why they aren't. The "wild" tomatoes that came up this spring are
putting on fruit and, today, we ate the first "Indigo" tomato we planted
earlier.

George


I am not jealous of your Texas heat or rain, but just a tad so of your
earlier producing garden.

So far all we are harvesting are asparagus (at an end) radishes and
mixed fancy-pants lettuce. Spinach and romaine will be up for grabs in
a week.

The prune plum has fewer than half a dozen fruits. Go figure. Donut
peach has fruit, but both of these fruit trees are turning into items
best admired for their spring bloom than production. IT is very
difficult to grow stone fruit here in NJ without a very strict spray
regimen, and I confess, if Safer doesn't take care of things, I just
let Mother Nature take its course.

We'll be fine with the blueberries this year, the blackberries are
covered in flowers The tomatoes - and there are many varieties this
year, as doing well, but we won't get fruit until July,

Long beans are coming up, cukes are coming up, acorn squash is fine,
an unknown, family-passed-down bean that a friend from Alabama sent
are coming up, too, as are some beans I picked up at Monticello..
Pepper, hot & sweet are taking their time, but I have patience. What
gardener doesn't?

Regular wax and green beans are not doing so well. It took a while for
the soil to heat up, so they are just popping through, and then they
were raided by a possum (said possum was have-a-hearted and taken 5+
miles away. I'd have let it stay if it hadn't decided to use the lower
garden as a toilet. We tried mouse traps to scare it off and that
worked for a bit, but it outsmarted us. Damn illegal to move it, but
by law we are only allowed to do on-site kill. Long story.)

Meanwhile, the flowers are glorious right now, with rhododendron,
peonies, roses, and irises going gangbusters.

Spring is a nice time for me in the garden and I am always filled with
hope - before the intense heat (remember, much of my gardening is done
in tubs) and the bugs, squirrels and birds get to things.