Green Fruit

You will not believe the level of chaos nature can impose on a reasonably well tended garden in three weeks. It took the plants that long to look scary and me one week to salvage the back yard from the wilde
ess. Five foot tall weeds, cracked nutshells, broken branches, vines grown out of control, covering pathways, grabbing onto everything in sight and smothering their defenseless neighbors. And this is the extent of my whining. Seriously, it was offensive.

Now that the vines are tied back to their supports, I noticed that the tomatoes didn't particularly like my pruning efforts. Lessons learned. They put all their efforts into growing back their lush foliage, and only after that they decided to bloom again. I did, however, get one of the promised giant fruits they are supposed to develop in the absence of leaves, as you can see in this picture. By the time it's ready for harvest, this monster tomato will probably weigh close to a pound.

The rest of the tomato plants are following their regular August pattern of mayhem and total world domination, and are getting close to the point where they topple their supports and grow completely out of control. They are fruitful, as much as I can see, considering the fruit is still green and it's kind of hard to tell it apart from the sea of unfurling foliage. It's a jungle out there, again.

I picked a few tomatoes upon returning, but the bulk of the Supersweet 100 is just now getting ready to ripen, because the pruning set them back a month. Maybe my garden thrives on chaos, who knows? It sure seems to enjoy creating it, given any chance.

The plentiful rain that blessed the cucumbers with a glut of fruit (I couldn't believe my eyes!) didn't do the tomatoes much justice. The latter thrive on bright sunshine and not getting their leaves wet. Every year brings a different harvest, it is part of what makes gardening exciting.

Cucumbers, squashes, peppers, beans? Splendid. Tomatoes? Meh...