Harvest Monday

I missed Harvest Monday last week, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been a steady daily harvest for the past two weeks. The weather has been warm and rainy, so the diseases and bugs are rampant, yet production is still good. And this week we are feeling the first taste of Fall weather with drier air and cool nights. I'll miss the summer garden, but hope to extend it as long as I can!

 What you see above, besides the peppers, is my very last zucchini. The second group of summer squash plants were completely destroyed by the squash bug plague I had in late summer. The peppers are still going strong. They are far and away the healthiest and largest plants I've ever had and still loaded with green peppers. A few are finally turning red too!

 Amazingly, for me, we are still getting lots of broccoli side shoots and the majority of them are coming from the first planting. Those plants are quite ravaged looking, yet the shoots keep on coming. I've never had enough broccoli to freeze before, but this year I actually froze 16 packets for winter use.

 This picture of my eggplant is pretty poor, but I wanted to show my first two Ping Tungs and a Caspar. I received my Ping Tung seed last spring much later than my others and they were started a good two months after my Swallows, so I really haven't gotten much out of them. Hoping to do better  with them next year. Caspar isn't much of a producer, but I like the idea of white eggplants.

Since my tomato plants are almost dead, I've been picking the tomatoes when they are just the littlest bit pink and letting them ripen in the house. That green one you see must've fallen off the vine. Early blight really did it to the tomatoes in our area and I've heard the same complaints from most of my gardening friends in town. A near neighbor told me this morning that she had late blight on her plants, but I haven't seen that over here yet.

 Still getting a good amount of kale. I have here Lacinato, Red Russian, Winterbor and Siberian. I planted some fall kale, but the plants are pretty small and I'm not sure if they will amount to much.

 I have loads of carrots this year, but they sure are small. Wonder sometimes if I'll ever grow a good sized carrot! And trust me, I'm not talking about a long, thick ten incher!

And in this final photo are two of my three tiny New England Pie pumpkins, a few Little Finger eggplants, the last of my Double Yield cucumbers and a handful of komatsuna,  an Asian green which is a good lettuce substitute and grows so fast! Not pictured are the three pounds of  green beans, which are obviously still coming in so well. That's it for another good week of harvest. Go on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see the other Harvest Monday offerings for this week!