It’s been a pretty enjoyable week out in the garden, and things have been growing very fast! It looks like we’re forecast to hit our first 100+ degree day of the year over the weekend. However, compared to last year, our overnight temperatures are still getting low enough to let tomatoes keep setting. I’m sure we’ll see a few fits and starts on that front as the summer continues.

Here’s a look at the garden as a whole from the benches on the end of the garden. You can see that the vine crops are looking gorgeous and lush, while our poor beans and tomatoes still look a bit rough.

This is a bud on the ‘Sweet Gourmet’ zucchini in the Mexican Garden. We were originally looking for the heirloom ‘Grey’ Zucchini, but couldn’t find seeds in stock anywhere. This hybrid version is that pale green that you might almost consider grey.

This ‘Sweet Success’ cucumber is getting ready to bloom as well. Actually, both this picture and the squash picture were taken on Wednesday, so they’ve both bloomed and continued growing, while others are blooming today. And yes, I’m too lazy today to go out and take some “in bloom” pictures.

Okay, so I do have this picture of a melon flower in full bloom, complete with cucumber beetle. For some reason, the cucumber beetles love us this year! I have no idea why. It’s not like there was any place in our garden for them to overwinter this year. Most of our vine crops are past the point of significant damage, unless the beetles transmit Bacterial Wilt to the plants. The beetles will probably cause some feeding damage to the fruit as well, once we get to that point, but I’m not sure in our situation if the damage is worth the amount of spraying we would have to do. Now those poor eggplant, on the other hand…

I am loving the ‘Fairy’ Squash, even though it isn’t starting to bloom yet. The silver and green leaves are so attractive, and it is making great progress climbing up the trellis. It might be the first variety to the top of the trellis this year.

Before we clipped up the vines on Tuesday, the ‘Fairy’ Squash was busy growing tendrils around the straw mulch. The tendrils are also way cool!

This mixed Calibrachoa is also looking great already this summer. (No, my camera wasn’t shaking…that was the wind!) This is ‘Trixi Berry Daring,’ and exemplifies one of the new trends in the bedding plant industry. The growers are customizing blends and growing the plants together to get the mixed colors, rather than selling you a 6 pack with single plants of different colors.

Have a great weekend!