Summer rains have started a little early this year. We had our week of blasted hot heat and then our mini-tropical storm that poured down at least ten inches on the garden last week. So far we are getting a fair amount each night this week, which helps with the water bill for the garden. The kids are going crazy each evening since we can't go out and play, just sit and watch the rains come down. T
here are plenty of tomatoes that have set, just growing and growing. The zucchini are starting to dwindle after lots of little yummy green fingers. I've heard that you can fry up the flowers, haven't tried that yet. The cukes are getting bigger and bigger. Some have that end blossom rot, yuck! They get mushy and yellow before they can get big enough. The peas and green beans are not doing that great. I have a feeling that they don't like the extreme heat and now with the rains they have not been getting enough sun. I did get to pick my first pea pod. Kevin, Kaitlyn and I shared the three fresh peas and boy they were yummy. I will have to remember those for the fall garden. I keep checking back with my good pal, Tom MacCubbin to make sure I am on par with what I should be doing now. Seems I am a little behind with planting my sweet potatoes. I have it going in a pot. I'm just trying to make the time to prepare a place in my garden to plant the shoots. The other day I found a sweet potato on top of my fridge and it was sprouting of course. I wonder if I can start this one even though it's late in the game. Let's hope I get a chance this next weekend to put them in the ground.
Once this little beauty gets pollinated take a look at the process it goes through. In case you are rusty on the parts of a flower take a look at this site.
Here's the little cucumber growing! You can see the flower on the end, it's not fully opened, kind of shriveled. Since it's already been pollinated the plant doesn't need to waste it's energies on upkeep of that flower. Eventually it will just fall off. However, look at the little prickles on the baby cuke. Self-defense :) Awesome. You'll notice the residue of them when you buy them in the store. Those little white spots are what's left when the prickles fall off because the cukes have been handled. When I pick mine in the garden they still have those prickles. 
Here's the little baby growing. 
And finally we have the end product. Another couple of things about cucumber plants. 
First they need to climb. They produce little feelers that cling and wrap around anything. They are way cool. I train my cucumber plants along a fence (as you can see in the pictures) and the tendrils will curl around anything it senses it's near. Some people let theirs just grow along the ground as a vine, but that takes up tons of room, so put something next to your plant it can grow up. Next thing you should know is that the cucumber plant has two separate kinds of flowers, one is the male and the other is the female. The pollen from the male flowers needs to get to the stigma of the female flowers. Reliance on insects to do this is best, however if they are failing you can always hand pollinate.
