Our own cantaloupe

We picked two ripe cantaloupes yesterday. I'm still amazed that they produced anything at all since they were planted in a shaded part of the garden. First one was a good size, but the other one is just a bit bigger than a tennis ball.

 Both were fully ripe and oh so yummy!  Very juicy, very fragrant and sugary - you can see on the bottom left side of the picture where i took a spoonful to try it. I'm definitely planting more of these next year and this time in the front of the garden where they get the most sun.

Mid-week harvest

This is a joint harvest - part of it came from the community garden - all large red and orange tomatoes are from there, eggplants and the front row of the butternut squash are from that garden. Black, green and bi-color tomatoes are from my new garden. All tomatoes including cherry types going back tomorrow to be delivered to the food pantry, but squash and eggplants remain here as they can't divide them evenly between people who need food - there's simply not enough for everyone so I get to keep them.  On the far left side you can see previous harvest of butternuts that were already measured - 7 of them and some acorns next to them. They were not counted in today's harvest. Not visible in the main picture are leaks that are just outside the shot in the sink. And we have our first watermelon! I haven't cut it yet but do hope it is fully ripe. There were 2 others but they got split from the last rain storm.

Upclose and personal with groundhog.

Maybe one day I'll get my patio containers to keep the produce that grows in them, but definitely not this year - this is one of the 3 babies that were born this spring and added to the groundhog family. 

This particular fellow LOVED my parsley, celery, cherry tomatoes (I guess they taste better) and strawberries.

Harvest aug 25

Another week's worth of harvest - some left over tomatoes, with sauce and cherry variety still going strong in quantity while most of my large varieties have died off completely; zucchini peppers, some left over onions, couple of cabbages, green beans, baby beets and carrots that were pulled to clear the bed for the fall planting, and one tiny cantaloupe that was very fragrant and very tasty so I can't wait to see how other larger once turn out.

New Freezer

We have new freezer for the house! It's one of the smallest we could find in the store - 12 cf. I'm super excited, because now I can stash away more of my own produce instead of giving it all away.  Our fridge with a side freezer was overstuffed, so I moved some of the frozen beans, carrots, squash and peas into the new one today.

Now I can chop all those lovely peppers and more green beans from the fridge and move them into the freezer. And once the fall garden starts I hope that we'll have enough spinach to freeze for winter as well.

Burpee Gardens - Road Trip!

This will be a long trip for me but I will try to make it there on Saturday. Should be very interesting.

Dehydrated tomatoes

I had a bit more cherry tomatoes than we could eat or my coworkers could eat, so I tried dehydrating them.  First couple of trays were Black Cherry - very tasty tomatoes that will be planted again next year.

And then couple more trays were Yellow Pear - also tasty. All sliced in half and dried for about 12 hours and then put into the fridge. They should keep a long time.  

 And while this is not exactly preserving, I was able to get outside for a bit and pick some Black Trumpets - very tasty mushroom. Some people tend to be a bit more sensitive to it and end up with upset stomach, but since it doesn't affect me I was very happy with this alternative protein for dinner. This Sunday we'll go look for Chanterelles so I can stash some in the freezer for winter.

Late Blight and around the garden

First it starts with plants turning yellow leafs even though there's plenty of water been given to the garden. Within couple of days it turns full brown and the plant is essentially dead..

There are still some tomatoes on some of the plants like these San Marzano's, but for all intents and purposes the tomato season here is pretty much over. Only a handful of plants were not affected but they also don't have much fruit left on them. Let's hope next year will be better.

All that's left to do is major clean up  this weekend. I'll pull those plants that have no tomatoes left, add compost to the beds and plant more fall garden veggies. But it's not all bad, some parts of the garden still in pretty good shape.