4th of July Garden Update

Happy Fourth of July. Our weather cooled down to the high 80s for Father's Day, then heated up again. It got up to around 107 on a couple of days. While it was cool, we got some good Blenheim apricots with no pit burn. Also a few Canadian White Blenheim apricots, some of which were exceptional. Very sweet. Recommended for areas with just a little more winter chilling than ours. There were some split pits. Probably not suitable for a commercial crop,

Some of the Golden Amber/Peachcot (?) fruits were also wonderful. Arctic Star white necterines are now done. They were great. So were the Flavor Supreme nectarines. Now we have Santa Rosa and Burgundy plums. Santa Rosas are an enlivinging experience when at their peak. Their peak doesn't last long. Burgundy holds longer on the tree, but it also loses quality after a while. Burgundy is sweeter and milder. I think I prefer Santa Rosa's zing. I peeled and ate the first July Elberta peach, a windfall, right in the garden. Got juice all over my chin and had sticky fingers afterward. It was great. The new supersweet fruits are great, but the old-fashioned juicy peaches with melting flesh when fully ripe have a different character that shouldn't be missed. Peaches are easier to grow right than nectarines.

I got a batch of Romanette and Romano Gold beans. They must have set around Father's Day. They were not tough or hollow despite the heat. Seems like a little miracle.

The volunteer summer squash plants have mostly died. The row we planted has been bearing heavily. Took some down to Emergency Aid. Magda and Zephyr have been great. Magda stays tender at a larger size. Johnny's promotes Magda as being similar in quality to its Zephyr. But Zephyr is a firmer squash with some winter squash parentage.

Sweet Zuke is hard to pick without breaking the end of the fruit. I bought the seeds in hopes of a darker companion for Magda. They're not as club-shaped as Magda this year, and some of the fruits are curved.

One of the yellow crookneck varieties has that "greening" virus. Not sure which. Still makes a lot of squash. Scallops and round zucchinis (Eight Ball and Cue Ball) doing fine. I've decided I don't like the round ones as well as the others. Not as convenient to cook. But they're fun to look at.

Tomatoes have been coming on heavy for a couple of weeks. A few have had blossom end rot, but most of them are beautiful.

Found a young black widow spider with white spots on its back in one tomato which had a small hole in it. We have a lot of widow spiders around here. I found a big tomato hornworm recently in Linda's tomato plants. Maybe the black widows have been eating ours.

The first summer we were in this house, I found most of the color variations of widow spiders noted for California: brown widows, black widows with the typical red hourglass, black widows with no hourglass (usually very large) and black widows with white spots on their backs. An juveniles of variable color. Have to watch for them in the creases under patio chairs, in corners, in tomato vines and under squashes. Our friend Geri was bitten as a child. No fun. On the other hand, I used to have phobias and fantasies about black widows. I had some secret little rituals for going down stairs in ways I imagined would protect me from them. A little magical thinking. There was often one at the bottom of our stairwell. If I had maintained my fears of black widows into adulthood, I'd be in a pickle now.

Mom remembers fascinating black widows and other spiders in the corniers above her head as she slept in a sleeping porch as a child. I'm not quite that relaxed about them, though I usually don't worry much about other garden spiders.