Monday, September 30, 2013

Harvest Monday

We have had the most beautiful first week of Autumn here in Connecticut. The trees are rapidly changing color and the temperatures have been perfect. It's been extremely dry though and the harvests are slowing way, way down.
 I don't have much to share this week. And for whatever insane reason, Blogger chose to put my pictures in sideways and I have no idea how to rotate them to the correct position. Big sigh here. I harvested two of the final three winter squashes. One is the only Kabocha squash I managed to grow and the other is a mystery hybrid, probably a mix of Waltham Butternut and Long Island Cheese. I'll be interested to see what the squash tastes like. I always plant all my various squash in one big bed and it never occurred to me that they might be cross pollinated to produce the odd mixed one. The final squash is a Long Island Cheese that will stay on the vine until the first frost is forecast.
In this second photo are my other harvests of the week. I am almost at the end of the tomatoes and harvesting them with just a pink blush to finish ripening indoors. As you can see, there are more beans, although the Red Noodles are just about finished. I got one final good sized Trombocino, more Hakurei turnips, a parsnip, a few French Breakfast radishes and teeny-tiny carrots, two peppers, one small eggplant, a small handful of dill and my one and only nicely sized watermelon. Alas, the watermelon was not ripe! At all! I tried my best to judge it by all the tricks I'd read about, but oh well, another year perhaps. And in the bowl are a variety of greens, a few lettuce leaves, arugula, tatsoi and swiss chard, enough for a salad.
Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions where you can go and see what other gardeners are bringing in this week!

14 comments:

  1. Your harvests look great for this time of year. I am jealous of your turnips, I didn't get any planted this year but hope to next year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! My turnips seem to do much better as fall plantings than they do in spring. One of my few fall planted successes.

      Delete
  2. Great looking harvest this week. That funny looking squash must have been from a bad seed or strange growing conditions. Cross pollination between squashes will happen, but the "new variety" won't show up until the next year when the plant grown from the cross pollinated seed bears fruit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, good thought about the squash! I hadn't thought it through. Heaven knows I do have some strange growing conditions here!

      Delete
  3. Beautiful harvests. I forgot to plant my turnips until way too late. I really doubt I'll get any. I'll miss them too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Daphne! They are my one fall garden success this year; wish I'd planted more of them!

      Delete
  4. Nice harvest, I've a few growing in containers, and the newly sown seeds are just pricking out, hope there's still time for them to grow a bit before freezing temp hits our area.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Mac and good luck with those late plantings! Here's hoping for a late first frost!

      Delete
  5. Love the harvest photo showing a little bit of everything. I am not having any luck with turnip. Lots of greens, but they are not sizing up. So sorry about the watermelon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have yet to successfully grow a watermelon, but not for lack of trying, lol! Hope you have better luck next season with your turnips. Mine surprised me.

      Delete
  6. It is so hard to judge when melons are ripe. I have cut into more than one that wasn't ready. I hope that mystery squash is a winner! I had one show up on my compost pile one time, and it was tasty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't the only melon I had of any size (well, barring the two smallish honeydews I got last week.) Melons are definitely something I need to work on!

      Delete
  7. That's a lovely Kabocha squash. Nice pile of red noodles, pulled up my plants as they stopped producing. It is extremely dry where I am also and no rain in sight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Norma, too bad it's my only one! We are dry as a bone here too which is another reason things are slowing way way down. We have a very slight hope for some on Friday.

      Delete