The Garden is Watered

It has been a wet summer here in Central Kentucky. After what seemed like forever I got my vegetables in the ground. I planted late this year, because of the rain and my time table. Though late, everything got in. I have three different varieties of tomatoes (Grape, Beefmaster, and Big Boy) cucumbers, carrots, onions, potatoes, bush beans, and peppers.

The rain has helped my tomatoes grow and bud and produce lovely green tomatoes, now I just need some more sun to get them to ripen. I have gotten a couple handfuls of grape tomatoes so far. I would have had tomatoes so much earlier if I had gotten my act together and planted them. At least I have them now and they are delicious.

My cucumbers are coming in. This year I feel I am better prepared for the amount of cucumbers that I should be able to harvest. Last year I got overwhelmed and not all of cucumbers were utilized. Interestingly enough, my cucumber plant that has done the best is a volunteer. The ones I started indoors ended up dying. So thank goodness for the volunteer, or I would still be waiting for cucumbers to arrive.

It seems this is the year for volunteers. I have volunteer tomato plants, (luckily they volunteered themselves in the same vicinity of my other tomatoes), sunflowers in the weirdest places and as of two weeks ago I have a volunteer birdhouse gourd vine growing in my front flower bed. I still haven't decided if I am going let it grow. In my research they take at least a 100 days of hot weather. It is the end of July, and though it has been a hot summer and August is looking like it will join the party, by my estimation I only have, at best, 60 days of warm weather left. And that could be stretching it. But it might be interesting to see what happens.

My flowers are doing really well, again thanks to the immense amounts of rain I have received. It has been great for cut flowers. My dahlias, cosmos, zinnias, pink and blue bachelor buttons. My sunflowers are doing well, but are slower. With more water there is less sun, and the sunflowers don't seem to like that as well. They are growing big and with some more sun I should have some beautiful sunflowers.