In article
,
Pat Kiewicz wrote:

General Schvantzkoph said:

I'm in Massachusetts. Is everyone else having a good year also?

Weather started out pretty wet, then turned hot and very dry -- August
was disasterous. I have a theory that the wet spring and early summer
led to underdeveloped root systems, leaving the plants less able to cope
with the dramatic shift in moisture. (I wasn't able to do enough watering
to make up for the lack of rain.)

The pole beans stopped setting and dropped a ton of leaves and I lost the
last planting of sweet corn. (We had the first Labor Day without sweet corn
and pole beans in many years.)

The SunSugar and grapes tomatoes were OK; for the sauce tomatoes I
had my smallest harvest in many years, and the slicers tapered off to
almost nothing.

Zuchinnis and cucumbers never recovered from the attack of cucumber
beetles that happend in early June (while I was out of state).

Cabbage is dwarfed (wilting every day must do that to them).

Cold summer here in northern California but everything has been
producing for the last month. Glacier tomatoes were a sight for sore
eyes, but they don't have much taste. Think I'll stick with Stupice next
year for my early tomatoes. Old German is producing some softball size
tomatoes, and the Green Zebras and Blondkopfchen (cherry) are tart and
good for salads. I'm still waiting on the Brandywines, and the Gold
Medals.
Best crop we've ever had for sweet peppers, Quadrato di Asti, Corno di
Toro, Giant Szgedi, and Yellow Wax. We are still waiting for the
Quadrato to turn red, before we start harvesting them. Nothing like
grilled, red bell pepper. The Corno di Toro, and Giant Szgedi are
sauteed as a side dish, and the Yellow wax go fresh into salads.
Rascally Raccoon scratched out half of the potatoes, but the potatoes
with tomato cages are doing fine, and going dormant now. Great year for
lettuce. The sugar pumpkin initially headed south, until it ran into the
shade from our fence, now has doubled back heading east, looking like
it's going to make a break for it;O) Bad year for the cukes, but that
was because I was having brain farts. The zuchs have settled down, and
we don't have to eat them every night (Gott sei dank).

Already laying out the 2011 garden plan. Crop rotation is really hard,
because I grow 3 Solanaceae, and there is only so much good light in the
yard. The temptation is to follow Solanum with Capsicum this year, and
then I'll have it mostly sorted out after that.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/maude
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/m...515308172.html