How's it going?

I hope that you are getting to enjoy some of the fruits of your early summer garden right now.

I'm finally getting to enjoy some tomatoes. (Emphasis on SOME.)

Here is an early season tomato report focused on how well different varieties handled the extreme rains:

Strong Disease Resistance: Cherokee Chocolate, Paul Robeson, Sunpeach, Chocolate Stripes, Black Krim, Kakao, Green Zebra, Carbon, Black Cherry

Moderate Disease Resistance: Delicious, Homestead 24, Estiva, San Marzano II, Anahu, Arkansas Marvel

Poor Disease Resistance: Indigo Kumquat, Hawaiian Currant, Mortgage Lifter Radiator Charlie’s (still one of my favorite red slicers, though), Amish Paste, Blush, Atkinson

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Here's what I'm doing now:

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1. Turning on my sprinkler system for the very first time this year. ​
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   Thanks to all the late spring rains, we have not needed to water our lawns until this week. (Watering when lawns don't actually need it results in weak turf that is less heat-tolerant.) The rain promised for Wednesday never came, and it's been hot.
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   ​Need help determining when to water your lawn? ​
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   Check out this very helpful site and sign up for their newsletter: https://waterisawesome.com/weekly-watering-advice/​
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2. Pulling out nasturtiums and succession-sowing sunflowers in their place.
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   ​The nasturtiums are kaput, so I hauled them off to the compost pile, and direct-sowed ProCut sunflowers in their place.
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   I will be sowing sunflowers in 7-day intervals. This is called succession sowing. The technique extends the bloom period for annuals that are "one and done". (It's also used for vegetables like lettuce.) Once one round of sunflowers is done blooming, another round will bloom a short time later.
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3. Fertilizing my tomatoes to compensate for heavy rains.
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   ​Last year, one pre-planting application of Micro Life Multi Purpose fed my tomatoes for the entire season. Because of the heavy rains in late spring and the fact that my beds are brand new (less fertile), I'm going to give my plants a boost with fish emulsion 5-1-1 to ensure strong production in their final weeks. ​
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4. Picking stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs off my tomatoes.
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   ​Everyone is dealing with these bugs right now. (You'll find them on the fruit itself.) There is no good treatment for them, so your best bet is to pick them off by hand into soapy water. (A friend told me she paid her kids to do this when they were growing up. 10 cents per bug. Ha!) ​
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5. Top-dressing flower beds with compost.
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   ​After pulling out the nasturtiums, I top-dressed the area with compost before sowing the sunflowers. All my beds are brand new, and regular additions of compost is the best way to build healthy, fertile soil. (Tip: Buy your compost from a nursery, not a home improvement store.)

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