Well, the tomatoes are not exactly off to a roaring start, but they have started to trickle in here at Minglewood. With the cool weather of early summer and too much rain, it's not shaping up to be a banner year for warm weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, or melons. Despite this, we will definitely have a crop, maybe not quite as abundant as some other years, but don't despair, there will be Minglewood tomatoes. During the past week we picked about 15 pounds, and there appears to be plenty of green fruit on the vines. Each week we will be bringing more and more. Keep in mind that the tomato season for us does not peak until around Labor Day.
Other good news is that green beans are starting to produce. We used to grow a lot of these, but got so sick of picking them that we stopped growing them for a few years. Lately, we have missed them, so we are growing them again, but in limited, more manageable quantities. We grow a beautiful variety called Jade. It's a long narrow bean, which we try to pick while it's small and tender.
Also in the good news department, spinach is back. You may recall we had a crop failure early in the season due to spinach blight, a virus transmitted by aphids. We started planting the spinach on the opposite side of the farm, and plowed under the diseased plantings. And what do you know, the new crop is disease free - so far. Spinach is not a big fan of hot weather, so I'm not sure how long the success will last, but it looks like we will have plenty to go around for the next few weeks.
Enjoy the bounty of summer!
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