On 7/8/2016 11:13 PM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

Looks like we'll be picking some tomatoes soon , they're starting to
ripen now

Huh. I'm up in zone 4 new england and I'm also "about
to get tomatoes" - at least off the SunGold (which was old seed, but it
sprouted, and so far for 7 varieties of plants planted the same day
(april 2) and transplanted the same day (don't recall now), it's winning
big-time.) Sometimes kinda amazing how little difference there can
be...admittedly, those did go out into "wall-o-water" tents here when
they went outside.

The garden is a screaming disaster (creeping buttercup, mostly) in
general, outside of the garlic and a few patches clawed clear for other
things, but it's been a messy year and gardening has not been the top
priority much of the time. Something, probably the overabundance of
rodents, stripped all the currants while they were too green to harvest.
Large fruit is a total bust this year, probably from poorly timed
freezes after warm weather. I've seen 2-3 plums and one crabapple. Next
year should be a doozy if things don't get froze off again.
I planted a crabapple in Louisiana years ago, and after about four years
it bloomed, had baby crabapples, then died. I guess heat zone 9b was to
hot for it. I've tried many fruit trees that could maybe live in our hot
area but mostly they just die sooner than later. This year we've gotten
a fairly good fig supply, enough for about a dozen pint jars of fig jam.
The Tennousi pear is loaded with fruit about the size of a baseball and
we have hopes for that. The kumquat tree is loaded with green fruit and
lots more blooms and it did well last year so there is hope there too.

My fence needs re-doing, and if I'm going to re-do it I'm going to annex
more lawn - in part to put more perennials in the garden - either moving
or splitting blueberries, expanding the raspberries, trying again on
asparagus, giving grapes more room. A neighbor managed to train the
local deer to jump fences (when I started this garden, a single strand
of monofilament would put them off and they'd pass by - then it took a 4
foot wire fence they could have jumped, but didn't - now I need
something unjumpable, and these are good-sized whitetails.)
Had a friend in Massachusetts who planted some sort of rose bush for a
fence, took a few years to get its growth but he said it worked once it
was tall enough to keep the whitetails out.

It's been abnormally dry, too. Several promising storms have opened up a
rain hole just as they came through here and watered places other than
us. Outside the garden the soil is cracking.

Weather has been beastly by local standards - had two days of running
the (window) AC overnight, but tonight's feeble attempt at rain came
with enough temp and dewpoint dropping to actually open the windows and
run the fan like we do most summer nights. The AC is a bit undersized,
but it will knock 10-15 degrees off and wring out a bunch of humidity,
which helps us snowfolk to handle it. Got by for decades without any, as
it would only get hot enough to bother for a week, and that wasn't long
enough to bother to get one for - then it got worse, and earlier and
longer.

I spent a year in Rhode Island back in my Navy days, it felt like winter
all year to this native Texan but it was at least different from a heat
index of 108F today. I don't miss the NE US as I do like my warm
weather. G

George