This might be my best "zucchini year" ever. We have brought zucchini, sometimes two or three squashes at a time, to the kitchen almost every day for a few weeks now. Some of it went into the freezer this past weekend, and some went into the freezer the weekend before this one.
Our green beans have produced enough for current meals, but we have harvested more at the garden/farm where we volunteer on Saturday mornings. This weekend, we not only managed to get a lot of our own zucchini into the freezer, but my husband canned 16 pints of green beans, we made a batch of blackberry jam, made a blackberry pie, and we put a couple of quarts of blueberries into the dehydrator. Not exactly an avalanche of food, but it was a very busy weekend!
The raspberries and blackberries in our yard are never quite so abundant as the blueberries, and they have passed their peak of production. However, the berries have really brightened up our breakfasts. Most of the blackberries that went into this past weekend's jam were from our Saturday work. The berries below are from our yard.
The peppers are doing pretty well, and the cucumbers are now producing "eatin' size" fruits.
The bad news is that the day-flying moths of the squash vine borers that I saw awhile back did exactly as expected; they laid eggs on my zucchini plants. The hole in the big petiole below is a sign that the eggs have hatched and the larvae already have bored into my plants. It is likely that, in a few days, I will need to pull these plants from the garden.
In the better-news category, the cucumbers are about to provide a lot more food. We had a cucumber salad tonight with our potato/zucchini soup, and if all goes well (I have heard some sad tales of downy mildew recently) we should have plenty of cucumber salads ahead of us.
Ugh that SVB hole made me shudder... Guess I'm next!
ReplyDeleteErin, I hope your garden isn't next! With all the tomato problems your yard has seen, it seems somehow unfair that the SVBs should head your way, too. To be honest, I am kind of "holding my breath" with regard to tomatoes this year. So far, I've pulled out three plants and removed a lot of diseased leaves, carefully disinfecting my pruners between each leaf removal, on the remote chance/fervent hope that the spread of the blight can be slowed enough to let us have a decent harvest. I did plant one Akers Plum in a very large pot, set well away from the rest of the tomatoes, for an emergency-backup.
ReplyDeleteThis has been the most amazing year for blueberries! I'm not even close to running out of berries on the bushes and they've been sweeter and plumper than any year past.
ReplyDeletePhyllis - Most years I m pretty sure that the blueberry harvest covers the expenses for all the rest of the garden; unless it is a very bad year for the birds, we eat blueberries for weeks. Glad to hear that they are doing so well for you this year!
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