A Day's Harvest

This is most of what I brought in from the garden yesterday. The cucumbers include both Straight Nine salad cukes and Littleleaf Pickling cukes. The squash is a trombocino. It will feature in more than one meal, because it is a lot of squash. (For reference, the veggies are in my biggest dough bowl; it is more than two feet long.) Surprisingly, we are still getting to pick blueberries. I am bringing in a quart or two each day. There were several birds out picking with me this morning, so that may end soon, but I am very happy to continue putting these into the freezer, the dehydrator, and our stomachs!



The Alabama Black pole beans have not been especially productive, but that may change as we have had cooler weather recently (low 90s rather than high 90s). I hope that's the case, because a rabbit ate all my bush bean plants down to the stems.
I picked the hot peppers, that Joe put in the smoker with a chicken, later in the day, so they didn't make it into the official Harvest Photograph. Smoking the hot peppers is one way to save them for the winter; we use them like chipotles (which, I guess, they are).



I am growing two kinds of little yellow tomatoes this year. The Yellow Marble are the size shape, and approximate flavor of regular cherry tomatoes. They started producing EARLY and show no signs of stopping. I have been taking these in my lunchbox to work every day, and I'm not tired of them yet.

The other little yellow tomato is Olivette Jeune (possibly misspelled). This is like a little Roma tomato: same shape, thick walls, low "juice" content. These were late in starting up production, but they are making up for it now. The plant (I have only one), pictured below, is covered with tomatoes. They've been especially good in salsa, but they have a surprisingly short "counter" life; they start to turn mushy within a few days after harvest, so they need to be eaten or processed as soon as possible.



The squash patch is still healthy and has several more smaller squash coming along. I've had to tear some patches of squash-bug-eggs from the leaves, but otherwise it is problem-free.



The lima beans are also still doing fine. The picture shows the funny flat pods.



The Jimmy Nardello peppers are finally starting to turn red. When they do, they become more sweet than any other pepper I've grown, so I have been just as patient as I can in letting them stay on the plants. However, I will get to harvest these, soon!