Yes, I’m alive. Life is VERY full right now between work, home, and church. Just some quick pictures with short comments. Forgive me, they aren’t even really organized.
The first melon of the season is in and it’s a WHOPPER!
Yes this is a fully grown melon. It’s called an apple melon. You can eat it, rind and all, but the flavor is different if you do. With the rind it tasted sort of cucumber/apple, but without the rind it was pretty much all cantaloupe.
Artichokes are done for the year so I let the last couple blossoms go ahead and bloom. So pretty!
The green beans are going great, particularly the dragon tongue and the red seeded asparagus beans. These are the dragon tongue.
We’ve been harvesting a lot on a regular basis. Between Sunday and Monday I harvested 8 pounds of squash and zucchini… EACH! That’s 16 pounds in two days and there were more this morning. I love a plant that produces!
This is the only butternut squash picture that didn’t look… inappropriate. Interesting vine. SUPER aggressive. Those things are taking over the world!
Cukes. Pickling and salad are all coming in. I love that.
This may be the first desert king watermelon of the year and it may kill the pepper plant that it tried to trellis up. I’ve been noticing that the first melon to form is not always good. Sometimes those ones just don’t make it.
Here is one of the dragon tongue beans.
Lots going on over here. You can see the AWESOME corn on the right, beans in the middle, and melons on the left. Everything is sprawling!
Charleston Gray. Again, this is the first one… not sure it’s going to make it. But tons of others forming.
An Old Time Tennessee melon. The first one didn’t make it. 😦 But I’m sure this one will.
This is the apple melon before it ripened. It looked like a little watermelon, got full size, then started to change color. Interesting vine.
Jenny Lindt? I think. I don’t have time to check my chart. 
It’s a jungle out there. No really.
Another OTTM.
We made a batch of pickle relish. I hope it turns out as well as my mom’s. The kids love this stuff!
Tomatillo lanterns are starting to form.
This might be the first OTTM to actually ripen up.
And… more zukes and cukes.
It’s a good time. I love harvesting. I hope you are having a great summer. I’ll try and carve out a time for a real post. I need to analyze the results of the different beans so far. Looking forward to more melons! I love summer time!
And oh yah, it is a billion degrees, but I was expecting a billion and ten… so, it’s not so bad.
God bless!
The Jones Garden Blog 
Lol, it never ceases to amaze me just how much and how well and how green everything grows in your climate 🙂 Looks to me that melons are to you what winter squash is to me – an obsession 😉
Well done, garden looks fab. Oh by the way if you cut your zucchini (courgettes we call them) into 1 inch cubes (well as cubed as you can get with a curved fruit,; then fry them in melted butter for a couple of minutes, let them cool down and then pop them into freezer bags, they freeze really well, can be easily prised apart once frozen (thanks to the butter) and then can be used throughout the winter in stews, casseroles etc etc. Apologies if you already know this 🙂
I do love growing melons. I love fruit in general. Veggies… well, not quite as much. Interesting about the zukes and squash. Usually by the end of summer my family is pretty much sick of them and never wants to see them again. My wife and I like them but the boys only tolerate them… at best. It might be worth trying to freeze a couple for one of those mid-winter cravings. My wife did buy one zucchini last winter and it just seemed wrong having to pay money for a zucchini! We’ve been giving them away by the pound!
Keith, wow, your garden is really producing. Gardening here in Nebraska has been a struggle this year and probably with be the worst ever. Now I think my backyard tomatoes at the Urban Ranch where I live must have got a whiff of the neighbor’s yard service weed spray. One day they were fine and healthy the next sickly with yellow curled up leaves. They are starting to recover after a good dose of fish emulsion fertilizer. I’m still hoping to get some squash and pumpkins planted for a late harvest.
Have a great harvesting day.
Bummer about the tomatoes, Dave. Our bigger tomatoes were a bust, but the smaller ones have been good. I’m going to try some succession planting on some other varieties after the fourth. We could really use some rain around here. There is a 20% chance of rain this weekend. I really hope that works out to some falling water here. We haven’t had any rain since the beginning of March. Kind of dry, especially in the northern part of the state where there are actually trees. Turning into a big matchbox up there. I hope the fall harvest works out for you, Dave!
AMAZING garden!! I’m so in awe of all the produce you are already getting. Up her in the Pacific NW, I’m just now getting tiny melon babies, and tiny green tomatoes. Your growing season is awesome!! Great job. How do you keep your weeds down?
Thank you! As far as weeds go, I mulched heavily to begin with and now I pull them as I see them, but they are definitely out there still. The grass is the worst and it’s in every bed. Grrr… I do hate that, but there isn’t too much I can do.
I hear that!! Weeds and grasses are awful. I put down fir chippings this year from the branches a couple of trees we felled. It worked well in the areas where I got a nice thick bed, but what has actually worked better is the straw I laid down in certain areas…almost no weeds or grasses popping up there. Not sure how it will all turn over and mingle when I rototill in the fall…we’ll see.
Hi Keith. Your garden looks so lush and lovely. It makes me long for the summer days when my garden will be filled with an amazing array of fresh veggies like you have.
Cheers Sarah : o )
Thanks, Sarah! We are enjoying them. I’m anxious for the melons to start coming in. There are a ton of them forming all over the garden. I saw one the other day for the first time and it’s half grown! Sneaky melons…
Great pictures. Glad your harvest is going so well! I’d never heard of apple melons before. It looks like a baby watermelon. Fascinating.