Tomato Blossom End Rot

It's August of what is turning out to be the driest year on record.  The garden is suffering!
In spite of the deep watering I'm doing in the tomato bed, I'm seeing blossom end rot on some of the Health Kick tomatoes.

Blossom end rot

I've seen this a lot in plum-type tomatoes in my garden when they haven't had adequate water,  but Health Kick tomatoes have been better at withstanding the problem in the past.  Not this year!  I think it's because the crop is so heavy. I've never seen so many tomatoes on plants before!  Most of them are sound, but if I turn over smaller, stunted tomatoes, there's the rot starting.  I pull those ones off right away and discard them.  I know that the bed was well prepared with home made fertilizer, compost and SeaSoil, so I don't think that nutrition to the plants is the problem as it usually is with blossom end rot.  In my case, I think it's just that the crop is so huge that the plants can't keep up moisture-wise.  So I keep watering and pull off the ripening fruit and finish the ripening in baskets in my kitchen so the plants have less fruit to cater to.

Aphids

The kale is also struggling.  In the Russian Red Kale, whenever I see a leaf curling over, it's got aphids inside.  Unfortunately, it's the tender young leaves that are most affected, so today I'm going to pull up the Russian Red Kale.  Blasting the aphids off with strong water streams is not keeping the problem in check.  So far, the Lacinato and Siberian are managing to avoid it, but in this dry heat, I don't think it's going to be long before I see aphids on them as well.

Sprawling butternut squash vines

The three butternut squash planted in the compost bin have been doing their best to escape into the garden.  Every morning the vines look happy and healthy, but by afternoon the leaves are drooping.  I give this bin a good, deep watering every day and spray the leaves as well, but it seems to make no difference to the afternoon droop.

Big squashes!

Fortunately, it hasn't seemed to affect the fruit of the plants.  These have to be the biggest butternut squashes I've ever grown!  I guess the plants are putting all the energy into the fruits!

Italian heritage beans under the bean arbour

The only bed that's been able to maintain a good moisture level is the corn/beans bed.  We've had a wonderful crop of corn and its pretty much finished now, but the beans are just getting going.  They are so rampant, that I'm going to see if my husband will tie ropes from the bean arbour to the fence so the vines can have more areas to sprawl to and make picking easier.  It seems that all in all, my vision of the bean arbour is going to work.  There are beans hanging down underneath the arbour already waiting to be picked.  I'll put them in tonight's butter chicken dish!