I picked green beans last night and need to pick more. My zucchini isn’t doing much this year but my trombocino squash is making up for it. I harvested half of my onion crop and froze them for winter and same with green peppers. Kale is doing great but I don’t know why I planted it as my husband says he won’t eat it. Tomatoes are still green.
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My tomatoes are slowly starting. Some smaller bite sized ones, my fav sunrise bumblebee variety and then some middle sized - a couple so far if these.
Peas are done and I planted green peas in their place. Garlic is pulled and I planted carrots in their place!
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My Japanese cucumbers are still doing very well, but the Armenian cucumbers are barely blooming. I also picked a couple of “American”’ cucumbers (forgot the variety). The Americans like to play hide and seek, and if not picked off the vine right away, they go to seed quickly. 
The cherry tomatoes are picking up speed, and there is a bunch of big green fruit on the heirlooms.
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Has anyone here hired a “gardener”? Not talking of a landscape/mowing service - we have one of those. They come once every 2 weeks and mow the lawn. I am looking more for regular help, especially during the growing season here in MA. Someone to come in once or twice a week and do whatever it is that needs to get done (weeding, trimming bushes, cleaning out a bed etc). I only get weekends to spend in the garden and can only do so much.
If you’ve hired someone like this, can you comment on the cost(s)? How much could one expect to pay per hour or per week?
My regular landscapers do this, and I have asked them to do it from time to time. I pay the hourly rate ($20/hour) per person. There are many HS kids in my area who will do this as well, but have never hired one.
Our regular landscapers do our weekly weeding, trimming, bed cleaning, edging, and plant feeding when they come to mow. Maybe ask your current person if you could pay them to do it?
I’m not sure how to break out costs because it’s part of our total package and isn’t broken out.
Somebody is advertising for that kind of help on NextDoor. During summer, I bet high school student could work. I’m curious to see how it works out for her.
My wife and I have been renovating our house, and we decamped at the end of last year; so I have only been able to provide minimal effort to my garden – which is a sad version of its past self. I did manage to get some tomatoes set out, although I had to start the seeds under natural light on a windowsill, instead of the grow lights that I normally use. As a consequence, I am a couple of weeks behind where I usually am at this point in the summer in regards to my tomatoes.
Here is a picture of my first tomato of the season, one of my trusty Tidwell German Pinks:
Because we have had lots of rain and heat here in East Tennessee, the weeds have taken over my garden. My wife and I have finally moved back in to our house, however, so I intend to spend some time weeding in the garden. I can see some Silver Slicer cucumbers peeking through the weeds, and some serrano peppers as well; and my field peas are going gangbusters so far (although no pods yet), since those seeds will grow anywhere, anytime (and the vines have overwhelmed the weeds in that part of the plot). Perhaps I will have some pleasant surprises once I get the weeds out of the way!
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Any tips on ways of getting rid of tomato hornworms (they’re so ugly). I would prefer not to use pesticides, but if that’s the best way, I will. I have 20 Amish Paste tomato plants that these pests have attacked. I picked off two, but clearly need to do more.
I can TASTE IT!!! 
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TY!! I’m going to try it.
Years ago my mom had flowers and veggies (especially tomatoes) planted in our yard. It was the horned worms that drove her nuts, convinced her to stick with flowers. But oooh… they were lovely flowers!
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Here are some of the cucumbers that I found (the fork is for scale; I apologize for the dirty dish towel). Three more of these Silver Slicers have been peeled and sliced, and put into a pickling brine in the refrigerator, for dinner tonight.
I will try to wade through the weeds in my garden and see what hot peppers I have.
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We finally got some monsoon rain here a couple of nights ago. Does this reduce the need to continue watering? Of course not. LOL!
However, I am going to reward myself for playing Tetris with our garage junk today and am headed early tomorrow morning to my favorite local plant nursery to buy a 5 gallon bucket amount of worm poo for everything in my garden. 
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I don’t often get to my community garden in the morning but did yesterday and was greeted by these volunteer Morning Glories (?) that arrived after I took my pea vines out and before the climbing green beans start up the trellis!
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As I mentioned elsewhere, trash pandas really trashed my fig tree! 
The delicate branches could not bear the weight of their fat behinds. So many broken branches- just so they could nibble on a couple of figs.
Collected what’s left. More to ripen soon. I hope.
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Is “trash panda” another phrase for “raccoon”? There are several things that I call the raccoons that periodically find my garden, but none quite that polite. 
The figs look great!
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