Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,
I’ll start right off with a picture of today’s harvest, picked just a few hours ago.
My trug contains bell peppers, banana peppers, Hungarian hot wax peppers, jalapeno peppers, cucumbers, onions grown from seed, a small bouquet of Zinnias, a handful of ‘Gold Nugget’ tomatoes, a few ‘Red Currant’ tomatoes, the first two ears of ‘Honey Select’ corn and one ‘Eight Ball’ squash that I let get too big.
My excuse on the squash that got too big was that it was hiding, as were some of those bigger cucumbers. There are even bigger cucumbers in the compost bin, but don’t tell anyone. I always feel a bit wasteful and lazy when I let cucumbers grow too big and have to toss them to the worms and micro-organisms that live in the compost. I’ll just consider it a contribution to the garden for next year when all that breaks down into good compost for top dressing the garden beds.
Still missing from the picture of my bounty are the first ripe “big” tomatoes, but there are plenty of green ones so I’m sure by next weekend I’ll have a few of those to eat, too. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the cherry tomatoes, including the first ‘Black Cherry’ which I saw while filming a little video of my garden. I picked it and ate it in one motion. It’s a talent I’ve developed to be able to pick a cherry tomato, wipe it on a clean spot on my shirt and then pop it into my mouth as fast as you can say “tomato hornworm”.
Tomato hornworm? Who said that? Where? Not in my garden, at least as far as I can tell. Usually by now I’ve found some and squished them, but they seem to be missing this year. I won’t complain about that or the lack of Japanese beetles. I’ll just count my blessings and my green tomatoes and keep on weeding when I can.
Speaking of weeding, I think I’ll wrap up the weekend with some more weeding in my garden this evening before the new work week begins. I never seem to get much done in the garden Monday through Friday, do you?
Flowers and veggies for all,
Carol
P.S. Here’s the weekly picture of my garden.
I don’t think it has changed that much from last week, other than some of the plants look a little more worn out and there are a few more weeds in the paths.
Carol, what a harvest! It all looks good. I'm not having much luck with my veggies, but the flowers look great in mine. Hope you get some tomatoes next week.~~Dee
Carol – great looking harvest you have there. I know what you mean about feeling guilty if you let things get too big. I've done that twice now this season with my okra. (Don't tell anyone!) I swear I will pick them tomorrow and pickle them!
No corn or cukes ready here, and just got the first squash blossom. It's a whole 'nother world.
Delectable looking veggies, indeed. And I don't see any weeds, Carol. Maybe a few native plants, but we have plenty of those around too and that's how I pass them off. "Oh, I PLANNED those. For the pollinators, you know."
Lovely! Our cukes haven't done a thing as I think the 'feral' squash and pumpkin vines have taken over the area. If we do cukes next year, I'm giving them a fence to climb and we will thin out some of the feral vines.
The corn we planted is not doing as well as the 'feral' corn that came back from last year. Ears already on and tassled up. We'll see if it's edible next weekend.
http://iyamvixenbooks.blogspot.com/2009/07/happy-bees-happy-garden.html
And I love the nasturtiums! I need to remember to plant those next year when I plant dill in one of my containers.
I really enjoy the pictures of your harvests, Carol. You don't have to explain to any of us about the huge squashes and giant cucumbers, we all get those things. The other day we found a giant cucumber that was hiding under the zucchini leaves, and it was a really big surprise because the darned vine had to go all the way across the garden path into the zucchini bed and then make a cucumber, all without being noticed. Fortunately, it wasn't compost material.
But, putting the too big to be edible in the compost isn't really wasteful, it is recycling!
so much for tomato hornworms. How about hares?
I like the way you have artfully arranged the produce in the trug – it looks so tasty!