Week Six already!

I can't believe we are six weeks into this distribution season and we are only just scratching the surface of our supply of lettuce. We always have a hard time selecting only a few varieties to grow during the seemingly short springs and this nice cool (sometimes too wet) season has allowed us to enjoy the diversity that exists in lettuce. We still have some oak leaf types to give out and a few standard red leaf types. Eventually we will get into the dense summer lettuce that they grow in Hawaii. (We though that we could grow that when it got hot here - that might happen sometime.) The kale and chard are also still going great guns - I know it is hard to keep eating it week after week sometimes. You can freeze both of them - steam or blanch them first f0r about 2 minutes. Then chop and freeze. They are wonderful in soup in the winter.
Over the weekend, I heard a recap of the weather statistics for June. The average temperatures were more than 2 degrees below normal and the rainfall amounts were more than 2 inches above normal. Putting cool with wet has made for some nice cabbages. We will tap into them next week. Unfortunately though, it made our snap peas rot before they developed full pods. The plants were so heavy with peas that they were weighted down and then once the rains came, the peas were laying on the ground. Our summer crops are not blazing their usual path. Our squash plants have few female flowers, and if this keeps up, we may harvest the males for squash blossoms to give out. Our peppers are doing pretty well. We may have a few hot peppers next week. The tomato plants are looking very good, and there are pretty many fruits that are still very hard and green. I would like the night time temperatres to stay out of the 50's, so they will ripen and not get terribly malformed. They will still taste good, but these few nights of cooler temperatures that we are experiencing, might bring on some goofy looking tomatoes. We shall see. I don't care what they look like if they taste good and produce enough quantities to satisfy all of our tomato needs.
Japanese Beetles are upon us. I am happy to report that we have covered our basil in time and should have little damage from the beetles (unless the cover blows off). They just love basil. More pictures to follow this week.