Gray Days in July
July in San Francisco means gray days and cool weather. And it’s definitely July. The high temps are in the low 60s, and there’s not much sunshine. We often get thick wet fog and and big gusts of wind off the ocean. But so far this week, it’s just been a bland gray.
The tomatoes are no happier with the typical July weather than I am. My good friends in Oakland are already harvesting Sungold cherry tomatoes. Not so much over here. My tomatoes have just recently started setting fruit. Here are the Rosalita cherry tomatoes in one of the sunniest spots on my deck. They’re doing well considering the sunny spot is also the most exposed to fog and wind. I’m excited for the Rosalitas because they’re such a cool shape — they will grow into a pink grape-shaped tomato.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the wild SF summers, here is a view during my walk home one day last week. I went from a barrier of warmish cool to cooler and windy, and smack into a windy fog belt outside my front door.
Brrrr! I’m on the Peninsula and it was cold and foggy today but over the past week, we’ve had some sunshine and 3, count ‘em, sungold cherry tomatoes!
Thanks for the post – good to know my tomatoes are just as stunted as others! I am in Laurel Heights and it’s all wind and fog here. I’ve got some little green fruits, but they don’t seem to be getting any bigger. I have some sugar snap peas that are doing okay though… there’s five pea pods anyway. Not enough for a meal, but at least they’re growing!
Even though I forget how trying it can be to grow tomatoes in SF, I just can’t give it up. I’m surprised though that the tomatoes at my community garden in Bernal aren’t producing more fruits yet — since it’s warmer over there I thought they’d be way ahead of the tomatoes at my house. Also — I just looked at your blog and WOW i love it! Cheese is one of my other passions — and by passion I mean primary food group. Can’t wait to read more of your blog. Thanks for stopping by.
While we don’t have the fog to deal with growing tomatoes in Seattle is challenging. Normally, it gets fairly sunny and warm in July and August, but here we are at middle of July and we’ve only had 5 days over 70 and that wasn’t 5 days in a row. It has been cloudy and rainy and while I have tons of green tomatoes it will be frost before they are ripe at this rate. I sympathize!