Harvest Time at Rancho Las Vegas

Hey, hey, hey! We're eating tomatoes--fresh picked, vine ripened. So, this belies the common rumor that you can't grow tomatoes in Las Vegas. You can grow them, but you must plant them in March, and keep them well watered, pick off the green worms, and get them all eaten in May and June because in July the heat will cook the plants in the ground.

Actually I read that the reason they don't do well in mid-summer is that the air temperature is so hot, 24/7, that the blossoms don't set into fruit. And that may well be true. This week has been very hot--98, 99, even 100 degrees, but night is still "cool"--it goes down to 70. But this "cool" time has been enough, or perhaps it hasn't yet been hot for enough days in a row to affect my plants, because they are still flowering and setting fruit.

And the compost bin is working great! We dumped out a batch of lovely dirt-smelling soil tonight and put it in a storage bin. When I clear out the lettuce (going to seed) I'll dig in some of this awesome dirt to the area and watch the crookneck and zucchini grow. I love this job!!