My garden is a microcosm.  Everything that goes on within it affects something else.  Too many bugs?  The plants die.  Too much heat?  The plants die or produce very little fruit. 

This prolonged dry spell has taken its toll, turning Tomato Land into The Dead Zone.  Even my Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes were not sweet in the least.

But over in Veggie Land, the Blue Lake pole beans are having quite a prolific season.  The Japanese beetles were not nearly as bad this year and the plants sustained little damage.

I had the bright idea one year to build my bean trellises from 1/2-inch copper tubing, probably from something I'd seen in Better Homes & Gardens.  However, a failure to keep up with the elbow joints this year has left them looking, according to a friend, "like a plumbing project gone awry."  Despite the lack of support, the tangled vines keep producing handful after handful of delicious green beans for dinner.

I also tried an experiment this season between bush beans and pole beans, and the pole beans won hands down.  They are sweeter, crisper and not at all stringy. I love to eat them straight off the vine, and I can even get my veggie-hating friend Keith to eat them raw, too.

My zucchini plants are the biggest I've ever seen.  Refusing to give in to the annual vine borer problem, they have quadrupled in size and have quite taken over the raised bed.  Hmmm...any more zucchini recipes out there?  Some things have done well and some have been a disappointment, but I challenge anyone to produce a finer red bell pepper than this glorious specimen!   

It's time to water my poor hydrangeas, drooping from lack of rain.  Hopefully we will get a good soaker this weekend.

more photos...