You may wonder whether I am still alive, since I have not posted recently. In fact, I am still kicking, and here is an update. The April snowfall was only a taste of things to come. The months of May and June were consistently colder and wetter than normal – setting records in fact. Gardeners all around the Puget Sound reported that their corn and bean seeds rotted in the ground, and that was certainly my experience. A late seeding of beans finally took hold, but the crop will certainly be late this year. Pretty much everything in my garden will be late this year. Onions were a complete disaster. The roots pretty much all rotted off. Garlic did just a little better. About half the garlic plants survived well enough to produce bulbs.
I set out my 68 heirloom tomato varieties, under plastic cloches, in mid-May, and removed the plastic in late June. Despite the lousy weather, I still was able to supply my local feed store/garden center with a large number of healthy tomato starts. Sales was down about 20% from last year, probably because of the crappy weather. Still, $730 worth of plants were sold, from which I netted $365. Weather in July was unusually sunny, but the nights were unusually cool. The result is that I have HUGE tomato plants, with very few fruit set. Even plants that I maintained in the greenhouse set fruit later than last year. Last year, I had my first ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse by July 4. This, year, the first ripe greenhouse tomato appeared on July 26. For the plants growing outside, it appears that the fruit set is about 10 days later than last year. The first greenhouse varieties to ripen included Anna Russian, Costolutto Genovese, Sausage and Mule Team. First Pick is not far behind.
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