[greeneyes]

Pinging the list. Posting and then heading for bed. Really tired. Will be back tomorrow, but posting now in case I sleep in tomorrow.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

My first ripe Farmer's Market Jalapeno. Farmers Market Jalapenos are grown for their corking. Corking is when the pepper grows faster than the skin can keep up so it cracks and then the cracks scar up. Produce managers see this as a blemish and prefer to sell the smooth Jalapenos you see normally in the market but others like myself see the corking and their large size as a feature. Taste and heat wise they are no different than any other Jalapeno. As I had hoped, when I hollowed it out I found a generous amount of seeds for saving. Tonight it will be stuffed, grilled and taste tested.

[daniel1212]

Pinging the list. Posting and then heading for bed. Really tired. Will be back tomorrow, but posting now in case I sleep in tomorrow.

Thanks for posting. But maybe it would be better to post in Sat. AM.

Thank God for literally hundreds of tomatoes so far, with lots of greenies and flowers for more. But I intend to pick the flowers off in a couple weeks since the decreasing sunlight and increasing means they will not ripen. Usually the first frost hits in October, though last year we were able to picks toms and squash until the end of Nov, praise God.

But the plants are showing stress, likely due to overcrowding and lack of regular watering and then too much rain, and nutrient depletion and 90+ days, once hitting 98.

Tomatoes do not tolerate temperatures that are too low or too high. If temperatures fall below 55 degrees Fahrenheit at night or rise above 95 degrees during the day, flowers will not develop or will drop off the plant. If the plant is already blooming, it will not set fruit. While tomatoes require six to eight hours of full sun daily, adding afternoon shade in hot climates helps prevent flower and fruit drop. - https://homeguides.sfgate.com/long-after-flowers-tomato-plants-until-tomatoes-grow-56871.html

Butternut squash is overall pretty good, with some picked already, though as usual some do not ripen, and the older leaves are yellowed. Some vines got trampled trying to get to the tomatoes.

The few cuke plants never set fruit. A neighbor gave me the seeds.

I did pump out over 200 gallons of water earlier this week in the light of over a week of heat and no rain being expected.

A neighbor gave me some old hose, and I bought a cheap ($8+) 12 DCV pump, and fashioned a screened container will a rock ballast in it to put in the 64 gal containers i use to catch rain water. It pumps out over 100', if slowly. But I can seldom even see where the plant base is, so it is a general watering.

If we can do this next year far better structure is needed.

[Melian]

Still hot her in SoCal. So many days of heat have taken all the energy out of me ... and my garden. Praying for a cessation of earthquakes and fires and a wet, rainy winter.