After coming home from being gone for a week, we thought the changes in the garden would be significant, but we weren’t prepared for this.

The beans have gone crazy, nearly filling their hoop houses. The cucumbers have tons and blooms and the starts of fruits.

The watermelon plants have expanded to the point that you can’t even see the circles in Squashville where they are growing. (It’s hard to remember how it looked just 8 weeks ago.)

And we were shocked to come home to watermelons the size of grapefruits. It won’t be long until we have some to eat.

The tomatoes are continuing to thrive and put out new fruits. Most aren’t ready to eat yet, but we did have our first cherry tomato. Yum.

And Brad harvested the shallots.

Perhaps most surprising of all, the tatsoi and lettuce are still going strong and haven’t gotten bitter.

Everything seems happy in the 100+ degree heat. And on the weather front (ha ha), the monsoons have started.

Sunday night, our lovely little herd of deer nearly wiped out one circle of squash. So Brad has upgraded Squashville accordingly.

Our lettuce and tatsoi are really thriving, producing more than we can eat. So we decided it was finally time to make an appearance at the local farmers’ market, as growers this time. (We’ve been working with the market here to help with marketing and try to increase the emphasis on fresh, local produce, not much in demand in our community. We never thought we’d sell there, but what better way to help the market grow.)

Saturday morning, we harvested. Then we began the process of triple-washing, spinning, and packing the greens. We’ve had lots of experience doing this before, but never in our house with our produce!

When it was all done, we had 15 bags of lettuce and 5 bags of tatsoi, plus a few extra bags for ourselves. Amazingly, we still only harvested about half the bed. We sold most of it and gave the rest to friends.

Our lettuce is really delicious, despite the fact that it’s been over 100 here (unusually hot). Most other folks here say their lettuce has gone bitter. I attribute our success to the fact that our lettuce bed is in the afternoon shade (and covered and gets a lot of water).

The rest of the garden is doing well. Brad harvested almost 9 pounds of hardneck garlic, and the shallots will be ready soon. The tomatoes are thriving, and we have little pea-sized watermelons. I love summer!