Hot Weather, Cool Weather

It's kind of a weird garden time for me. The week before last, we had four or five days with temperatures in excess of 100 degrees. I think the hottest it got was 106 or 107. Naturally, my garden looks terrible--the tomatoes are withering, the pumpkins and melons wilt from the heat every afternoon, and the rhubarb looks awful, even under shade cloth. I'm still getting purple hull peas and cantaloupe, but that's about it. So how am I reacting to this awful heat? Why, I'm working on cool weather crops, of course.

I have started almost the whole array of cole crops--broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, and collard greens. All I lack are kohlrabi and turnips, and I will start those in the next couple of weeks. It feels a little odd to be working on winter crops when it is 100 outside, but I guess it's no stranger than starting summer crops inside while the lows are still in the high 20s.

Incidentally, the species Brassica oleracea and its sister Brassica rapa are one of the most flexible crops we have; every single part of the plant has a strain bred to produce that part of the plant. Bred for roots, it's called a turnip. Bred to produce a thick stem, and it's kohlrabi. Mature leaves are kale and collard greens; immature leaves (buds) are cabbage and brussels sprouts (terminal and lateral buds, respectively). The flowers are cabbage and cauliflower. Finally, let the plant go to seed, and you can harvest the seed used to make canola oil. I can't think of another garden plant that comes in such a wide array, with so many different parts that are useful.