The summer squash “Yellow crookneck” greeted me with plenty of flowers and only half a dozen fruits. From the look of the immature plants, they will surely greet me next weekend. The yellow pattypan squashes are also blooming well, however the green pattypans are looking a bit gangly, possibly due to excessive weed pressure.

Summer Squash Forming

Along with summer squash, the cucumbers flowers are in full bloom and we should be nearing a nice harvest.

Lemon Cucumber

Tomatillo plants are prolific and setting fruit with reckless abandon. The old saying about zucchini bounty is nothing compared to this.

Tomatillo Setting Fruits

The tomato plants are rather small in stature, but producing lots of fruit. Given how much nitrogen is in the soil, I was expecting plenty of foliage and not too much fruit. It is blasphemy to admit not being much of a tomato lover, but they are the summer top 3 so we planted some. Maybe a roadside sign that says “Honk for a Free Tomato” is in our future.

Early Tomato Haul

Carrots still in the ground from 4/19 and still tasty. The second planting of carrots were planted with better spacing in between, and better weeded. I was dismayed to find that some deer had chomped the plants and dug up a dozen roots. I guess Dan will lose some stinky old t-shirts as I put up some scarecrows next week.

Carrots

A short row of sunflowers bloomed, and many more are coming. These require 70 days to flower, 110 days for seed. Sunflowers can be used as a cover crop and tilled into the soil to build biomass anytime. But, we will attempt to let most go to seed and see if we can beat the birds and the rodents.

Bees Love the Sunflowers