Fruit!

Yes! That IS a tomato you see. This one is one of the larger ones that was on when I was working in the garden this afternoon. It is about dime-sized. The next set of blooms is coming on so it is time to put more calcium tropicote down to prevent bloom end rot.

Today I put out some more soaker hose (an additional 75 feet) tied the tomatoes and suckered them. (Suckering means taking off the branches that grow in the crotch of two other branches. It also means taking off the branches that grow at the base of the plant. I have been told that this causes the tomatoes to grow larger. We'll see. I've tried it both ways before and really couldn't tell a difference.)

Anyway, it turns out that I need about 225 more feet of soaker hose. I also need to run some hose from the well house over to the garden so that we can get started with the watering regimen. With this ungodly heat that we have had this week (in the upper 90s) the ground moisture gets depleted pretty quickly.

The poison ivy situation is getting worse too. What was a fairly small patch (probably about 6 feet square) exploded over the past week to over twice the original size.

It looks like I need to quit putting it off and find some of that Roundup® for killing the heavier-duty weeds. I have never seen so much poison ivy as I have this year. I wonder if they sell that stuff by the 5-gallon bucket?

Anyway, the weeds are starting to grow in the garden. I tried to pull some up today. It was like they were anchored in concrete. I guess I'll just have to hack them off with a hoe as long as I can. I also noticed some mites or something on my tomato plants today too. Guess it is time to spray again. It looks like I still have plenty of work to do! Now if I could only find the thermostat and turn it down about 10 degrees!