This morning I got up at 5, made a cup of tea and headed out to the garden. Yesterday was a scorcher here in Coastal Maine at 88 degrees. Today the high is forecasted a little lower though at only 80. I keep telling myself only one more day to go… then we’ll be back to the mid 60’s lower 70’s {my happy place}.
I harvested the remaining radishes and planted 2 rows of bush beans in their place and I’ll probably harvest a bit of lettuce today for a salad.
French filet beans… have you ever tried then? The are super tender when picked early and I love serving them as a side dish during the summer months. Being a bush bean, I love that they don’t take up too much space in the garden.
I also picked some spinach leaves to include in my favorite quinoa salad recipe and pulled up the rest as of it because it’s just too hot to be growing spinach in the garden right now and some of it was beginning to bolt.
I had no idea the spot where I planted it back in May was the sunniest part of the garden. I think I’ll plant some basil in it’s place tonight. Homemade pesto by the boatloads in about 2 months… it sounds like a pretty good plan to me.
Round of Hungary pepper babies! If you love sweet peppers, this is one you need to try.
And of course you need to try Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers too. I like to chop them up for pasta salads or to sauté with zucchini and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Our tomato plants are filling up…
And I think we’re about a week or two away from sugar snap peas.
And those 1 gallon Bloomstruck hydrangeas I planted back in April are in full bloom. Life is good!
Well that’s the news from my garden… what’s happening at YOUR place? And if it was super hot in your neck of the woods these past few days, what are you doing to keep your garden alive. We all want to know.
Have a good one,
~Mavis
Want to grow more in your garden this year but don’t know where to start? Check out my post on Succession Planting – Why It’s Awesome and How to Do It.
Connie says
Should be 100 here but it is 80s with much needed rain. We are loving every minute.
Robin in WI says
My aunt and uncle live in Oregon. A couple days ago she posted on Instagram that it was 114 (good lord!) and she had her tomato plants under a row cover to protect them from the sun.
Wendy says
Here in Alabama we are having lots of rain. Thankful for the rain, but my peppers and tomatoes need some SUN. We should be harvesting green beans and black-eyed peas in about three weeks. The cucumbers are coming in and we have little tiny baby squash. We are getting about a quart of blackberries a day and a gallon of blueberries about every three days. And we are excited as our apple tree finally has apples-about 10, but its a start!
Hawaii Planner says
It’s been warm at our house in California, but not crazy hot. My herbs did not enjoy the heat the week we had before, where we were in the high 90s. The pepper plants, however, are in heaven & loving the heat.
We are on the Oregon coast (prepping our vacation house for closing, we are selling next week) & it’s blissfully cool here. My parents live near Vancouver, and it was 112 at their house this weekend. The first thing I noticed when we got to the beach was that it was cool outside, but very warm inside the house. You can tell, they’ve had hot days, even at the beach!
Elle says
We’re way too hot in the NW.
I picked a zucchini off a volunteer plant last night-sautéed for dinner 🙂 Will be able to pick a few cucumbers tonight!
Tomato plants have been suffering in all this heat.
We will get what we will get! The nature of the beast.
Susan H. says
Yesterday it was 92° with a heat index of 100° here in Akron, Ohio. It rained hard then the sun came out. My New Guinea impatiens was scalded. Picked peas this morning and plan on picking beet greens to saute with store bought spinach. Need to plant green onions. Raising a radish that you eat the seed pod instead of the root! I love trying new things!
Heidi P says
Here in Oregon it has been blistering hot. Yes 115 day before yesterday. Luckily (chuckle chuckle) we are dropping down into the high 80’s today and for the next week with only one 90+ degree day. I hate to complain about the heat because I’m not a fan of rain but it was miserably hot with high humidity levels. YUCK!
I tried to water as often as possible which helped tremendously. Most garden plants did well with only a few with slightly burnt leaves. The big issue is the watering brought out the moles in a big way. Now I have mounds of dirt all over and one has eaten many of my pole bean plants. Every year truly is different in the garden.
On a non-garden note ~ Our chickens were the hardest to keep cool. How do people in super warm and humid climates do it? Ours got lots of greens from the garden and watermelon galore. I also hosed down their run often. Luckily they have a huge shaded area to hang out in.
loriann says
I took this year off from gardening and glad I did. It’s a lovely 100 degrees, but the past 2 weeks we reached 112-116. I need to move my garden closer to the house in to the afternoon shade, as all I do all summer in the past years is hang more and more shade covers for the garden. The plants still wither and don’t produce much. I have to start 0lanting in March, skip June, then plant again late July. This winter we will get 9n with planning a new location, new boxes, vertical growing, etc.
Ashley Bananas says
What part of the country do you live in? I am in SWFL and have similar planting seasons.
Ashley Bananas says
Beautiful! I hope to do some gardening this fall/winter in SWFL. It’s too hot to grow most ‘Northern’ plants here year round. Native yes. And I have plans to add some more fruit trees to my yard this year.
Terri says
Don’t know how you remaining hydrangeas look, but I think the one in the front of the picture looks like it needs watered.
Annette says
What type of mulch do you put around the hydrangeas?
Mavis Butterfield says
Grass clippings. 🙂
Marlene Wurtzbacher says
You certainly have a green thumb Mavis! Your gardens are beautiful !
Bridget P. says
We have been watering twice a day here in E. WA has been and will continue to be in triple digits all week. My cucumbers are doing fabulous and have done 3 rounds of canned dill pickles. Tomatoes are hanging in there and peppers are doing well. Just harvested danvers’ short carrots from my extra 2 gallon pots this morning. Going to make your carrot cake jam but using crushed mandarin oranges instead of pineapple as the girl and I are very sensitive to pineapple. Here’s hoping for some lower temps next week!
Mavis Butterfield says
Well done on the pickles!
Terri Lindeke says
We watered at least twice a day in our first time ever 114 degree days in the Seattle area. You should know that Seattle and San Francisco areas more than 50% of households DO NOT HAVE AIR CONDITIONING. Oregon is not much better and they have been hotter than the Seattle area. A lot of people have died from the extreme heat, more were hospitalized
We have a gigantic plant we call Africa, as it looks like it came from the jungle and tries to find it’s way into our home, in front of that is a gigantic Calla Lilly… We are talking a four foot diameter at the bottom and can have up to 24 blooms on it at once.
We realized if we are ever going to be able to leave the house again, we need to do something about automatic watering. We have it for our 2 dozen hanging baskets… but our gardens are very extensive… and the area birds depend on us keeping all of out fountains and burblers going… a murder of crows were in the large fountain last night… they did say thank you.
Hubby is out back now installing all the new bits and pieces to water everything.
Back to work. Enjoy your day
GrannyB says
I picked a large heaping container of green beans, 15 beets, and dug up my garlic this morning. Divided up the beans and beets and sent them to two of our older neighbors and set the garlic on the picnic table to dry. Yellow squash is getting close and the tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes. Carrots and potatoes are looking good too. It has been a good year for gardening here in SW Missouri.
Janice Gallaugher says
We’ve had unseasonably hot weather on Vancouver Island – up to over 40 C. (about 105 F). I laid cotton bedsheets on top of my tomato cages to stop the sun from beating down directly on the tomatoes and it had the benefit of helping a bit with evaporation.
Jennifer says
I’m in Ohio and I just pulled my peas because they were done with the heat we had the past couple of weeks. I got 2 large pickings. I’m not sure what I will plan there – debating on beans or beats right now or wait and do a fall planting of peas.
I have 10 tomato plants and most have green tomatoes which is very early for me – yay! I planted 2 hills of butternut squash – 4 seeds each. 2 plants sprouted. Cucumbers are wilting in the heat, but it has rained the past 2 days so hoping they made a comeback. My yellow beans seem to mostly be eaten by something right after I planted. They haven’t flowered yet, but hoping for at least a meal or two of beans.
I missed the boat on strawberry picking so I bought berries at Costco and made jam yesterday.
Gigi says
I was reading an article on hydrangeas that had chlorosis. The gardener had performed a soil test and discovered deficiencies and then amended the soil. She found a lab through the state university extension. Just wondering if you had ever done a soils test at any of your properties.
Jamie says
It’s been in the high 90’s with 60 – 70% humidity in Northern Maryland for about a week. I moved some of my full sun container plants to a shady spot after noticing sun scorch on their leaves. The sun has been great for the berries though and we have had bumper crops of white mulberries, black raspberries and wine berries so far!
Diana says
This past week has been glorious east of ATL, GA. End of the week saw a high of 80 (!!!) with low humidity. I thought I was in Maine, lol. I was out in the yard for hours working. It was marvelous!
Had my first tomato sandwich of the year, yesterday, and moaned in delight all the way through the eating. I had issues with many of the first tomatoes having blossom end rot. It seems to have straightened out and I’ve got a ton of Jet Star tomatoes and Black Cherry cherry tomatoes on the vine ripening.
Blueberries are coming in lovely. I’ve not harvested a ton, but two of the 4 bushes were loaded and I’m picking every day. Gonna make some blueberry muffins today.
Lots of bell peppers ripening.
Planted my peanuts this past week. Am experimenting with where/how to plant them. Some in pots, some in ground in different areas of the yard. I counted up close to 250 seedlings in the ground! Guess I’ll have peanut butter for a couple of years.
Everything else is growing well and I’m hoping for a milder summer (no horrible heat and humidity), but not counting on it. Sure did enjoy this week…