Colorful Basket

Cherry Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum 'Super Sweet 100')

I'm back in the garden! Last week my family went on a road tour of universities in California (which explains my inconsistency on my blog posts recently). Now we are back and happy to find out that my garden is in great condition. Thanks to my sixteen-year-old daughter who made sure that the drip system was working well before we left and my neighbor who came during the week and gave the plants a cool-treat by watering during those triple-digit-days.

When the temperatures are high and water is not limiting plants usually grow very fast.  My youngest child noted that the fig tree in the corner of the yard grew almost a foot while we were gone.   Same thing is true for the bottle gourd.

A colorful basket of vegetables from my kitchen garden.

Although I asked my friend to harvest from my garden, there was still a lot of food that needed to be brought in.  They need to be harvested so that the plants can continue producing.   Those tomatoes are very sweet.  This afternoon we grilled some summer squash and they were great.  The basil plants are still green and growing with some flowers every now and then but I keep pinching them off.  

Cracked tomatoes.

Have you ever wondered why some tomatoes are cracked?  It is not caused by a disease.  Instead, it happens when the amount of water available to the plant is inconsistent.  When the soil is allowed to get close to dry followed by over-watering can cause the plants to absorb more water than the cells can contain.  As a result the tissues break like this one in the picture.  This happens to potatoes also.  In any case, the vegetables are still edible.  The only negative effect is on the appearance.  In commercial scale farming, this would be detrimental on the marketability of the produce.  Solution - Consistent watering schedule.

The sweetest tomatoes are those that ripened under the sun.