Where Did The Summer Go?

As you know I have been very busy, but where the heck did the summer go?! This was the summer that I was finally going to stay on top of my gardens...

Oh well, I guess they don't look that bad, and my vegetable garden is still producing a ton of stuff.










My tomatoes, strangely, are almost done giving fruit, but are still green and healthy looking plants. I got enough tomatoes to can about 10 quarts of sauce, make about 1/2 gallon of fresh salsa, and still have tomatoes for salads and fresh sauces.

I still have not harvested all my carrots. I was intending to pickle them, but that didn't go anywhere, and now they are too big. Oh well, I have lots of friends that LOVE carrots. And you never see carrots abandoned in the breakroom at work, so that will be a treat.

My Brussel sprouts might actually produce something this year.

My beets are just about ready to harvest.

My basil has slowed down in its production, but I am still getting an ice cream bucket of basil from it about every two weeks.

My pumpkins have gone wild. I grew a blue heirloom variety this year along with my favorite Triple Treat. The three blue plants that grew are far out-producing the eight Triple Treat plants. They are also steadily taking over my yard. I hope that these pumpkins are as good tasting as the description reports. They aren't much for decorating with.

I have a ton of edamame to harvest. I've actually lost track of all my beans.

My eggplants are producing through the roof! I actually got multiple eggplants from a single plant!

My squash finally decided to do something. For actual fruits, I have a couple butternut, quite a few scallop, two zucchini (thank goodness for other gardeners!), and about a half dozen delicata. I have no idea what happened to my acorn squash, but I have someone who promised to bring me in some of his extra hubbard and acorn.

I even have onions and shallots this year. The onions came from the onion parts that I planted earlier. They yielded baseball sized onions that were just as sweet as the parent onion, so I have continued to plant my onion bases throughout the garden. Even the shallots that I started from seed got to decent size. I am going to try leaving them in the ground over the winter to see if they make it -- I heard they were pretty hardy and that over-wintering is a good way to perennialize.

Then there are my turnips, which after so many years of failure I now have more than I seriously know what to do with! I would bring them to the food shelf, but most have root worms that need to be cut out. I don't have a problem with it, but not so sure about the food shelf.

Most of my pepper plants turned out to be Cherry Bombs, which I could not be happier about. Cherry Bombs rock, plus these are so hot, they could almost pass for cayenne.

My radicchio wasn't so bad. It was great chopped up in a salad and didn't cost me $4. I only harvested one head, but I only had planted two and just never got around to harvesting the other before it rotted.

I still have a fall crop to plant. Maybe I will actually get around to that this year!