Wow. Between the Veterans Healing Farm greenhouse and my back yard, real progress is happening, which will soon culminate in an avalanche of tomatoes, as well as melons, peppers, potatoes and eggplants.

But though that avalanche is the highlight of many gardens, much joy has already been experienced - an a great deal of joy is underway. The sadness of the bolting lettuce vanishes with the first picking of basil, bush beans, summer squash and cucumbers.

Summer Squash! Zephyr (yellow, on the left), Bennings Green Tint (the small center patty pan), Eight Ball (dark green), and Sunburst (yellow patty pan).

The summer squash (pictured above) were direct seeded into prepared straw bales on May 8 - the very first squash were picked just before our Seattle vacation began - June 15. That’s fast! From the 8 plants (2 of each of the four varieties), we are already needing to be creative with summer squash recipes - as well as generous!

Today’s pickings of bush beans Marbel, Goldilocks, and Celine (left to right)

We are delighted that the bush beans are now abundant (as shown above). We love the slender filet types, and these three are pretty spectacular. The beans were direct seeded into prepared straw bales on May 8 - the first significant harvest took place a few days ago (July 2).

We’ve also had a few Unagi cucumbers. What a wonderful cuke it is - same flavor as Diva but they grow longer and the plants seem to handle disease much better.

As for melons and potatoes - full speed ahead on each. A few small melons seem to have set on Minnesota Midget and Eden’s Gem. I will start to poke around for potatoes in a few weeks. We also harvested the garlic a few days ago (we planted it in September) - it has been bundled and is drying in the garage.

The eggplants and peppers are in bloom, and a few small fruit have set.

Left half of the Veterans Healing Farm tomatoes

Sue and I went to the Veterans Healing Farm greenhouse to see how the tomatoes were doing. Wow - though nothing is yet ripe (they were all planted on May 5), the plants are loading up with fruit. Only one variety is struggling with disease - 114 plants are in great shape.

Finally, the tomatoes in bales in our back yard are looking wonderful. My daughter Caitlin did a great job keeping an eye on them while we were away. I’ve been feeding them weekly, and using twine to keep the plants upright. Removal of lower diseased foliage has been minimal. There are small tomatoes on every plant, and I predict first cherry type tomatoes in a week, and larger slicing tomatoes in 2 weeks.

My next blog will likely contain some tomato tasting notes. Even better, you can catch my weekly Instagram Live sessions, where I do lots of show and tell and answer any questions that are submitted. My handle is @nctomatoman at Instagram - Live sessions tend to be on Thursday or Friday afternoon, at 3 PM.