Is It Finally Summer?

I feel like Michael Corleone in "Godfather 3."  
I don't feel like I'm in a really bad movie, but every time I walk out to the garden, the weather pulls me right back in the house.
It's been cold. It's been raining. Ten miles away and it's snowing. It's been everything except summer around here, even when summer arrived. 
The one thing I can say -- we are getting growth.

Asta is producing well. We've got flowers and growth on both the cucumbers and the pumpkins (replanted from seed, as the originals from the kitchen died off like red-shirts in an original Star Trek episode).
As you can see in the back, we also have a great crop of Rancho Gordo Corona beans going. We're not going to have enough to make a "batch 'o beans," but we will have enough to plant next year, all in anticipation of growing enough to make dinner. #RanchoGordo
Yes, I know -- the $3258.25 home grown dinner.
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After some real worries about frost damage with the sweet potatoes, they've come back nicely. They remain one of my favorite crops each and every year. We have such a nice bumper crop come fall.
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Also doing well are the purple petite potatoes that Becky wanted to grow. We planted seed potatoes, which I didn't have a lot of faith in, but they took off, so, I figure, like Mark Watney, I'm ready to go to Mars and plant potatoes.
I really don't know how I came to that conclusion, you've just got to understand that is how my mind works.
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The tomato plants are set up in Nora, the lower garden. She's doing well this year, we're getting some good growth, but it's slow. I figure it may be the weather, too cool to really get things going, maybe even too wet. But they are catching on -- I just hope we don't have problems with end rot this year. (Calcium, I need more calcium! Captain, I'm giving her all we've got!)

Nora is also home to garlic, cucumbers and cabbage. And weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. You get lots and lots of weeds when you get lots and lots of rain. But this is why I hired Mr. Bitterman and Furious George all those many years ago, to do the weeding. 
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Sadly, it turns out Becky is doing most of the weeding while Furious George sits on the deck, sips his martini and shouts "You missed a spot!"
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It has led to some amusing moments for Mr. Bitterman and myself, as Becky, Furious and Helen, the next door neighbor, who just likes to get involved and stir the pot, all chase each other around the yard in a rough approximation of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."
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You can see, along that right edge, more beans growing. Those are Rancho Gordo Christmas Limas. I swore I would never eat another lima after throwing them up at the dinner table (Age 6), but I have come to love the little guys and the Rancho Gordo Brand. #RanchoGordo
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More beans. Christmas limas again. #RanchoGordo
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Somewhere in here are the chiles -- Hatch medium, Hatch mild and Oaxacan chiles. Once Becky and Furious George and Helen the Neighbor stop playing in the backyard, they should start weeding this section of Nick, the upper garden. They are in there, somewhere, I can assure you.
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Also, the butterfly garden is doing VERY well this season, thanks to our decision to add annuals to the mix as seed and not just perennials. We're getting some real variety and color. Becky and I, Furious and Bitterman should be spending a number of evenings down here drinking a variety of cocktails when the weather decides to cooperate.
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We'd also like to take a moment here to welcome our latest addition to the backyard, Feather McGraw, Internationally Known Cat Burglar, even though he's a chicken, who is really a penguin (See "The Wrong Trousers," Wallace and Gromit/Aardman Animation).
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This is how I've always imagined bank robbers and crooks, at least until recently ...
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Now, the crooks are more likely to be lawyers and nerdy office guys with briefcases and laptops. As I think about it, maybe that's the way it has always been and I just wasn't paying attention.
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