Summer’s Bounty

When I left home Monday morning there was no rain in the forecast for the whole week. This meant I had to depend on Russ to not only harvest the garden at least once while I was gone, but to water twice. He did an excellent job of keeping things alive. He did harvest, but told me when I got home I had a lot to do.

This morning, as the hottest day of the year was just beginning to pre-heat I went out to take stock of the garden. Being away from my garden for four days is a little nerve inducing. I was greeted by an abundance of Japanese eggplants ready to cut. The yield today was eight nice fruits. Enough to make into a freezable meal or two.

I cut some of the ever present birds eye peppers and jalapeños. Picked two quarts of pole beans. And started in on the tomatoes. This was my largest day of tomato harvest for big tomatoes. I picked at least 20, Roma’s, Rutger’s, Campari’s, along with a pint of Cherry and grapes. These tomatoes will keep me busy this weekend.

I got my first two mini butternut squash. I look forward to seeing how they cook up. I picked some left-to-long okra because Russ did not know you have to cut it everyday.

The only thing I think might be spent are the cucumbers. The plants are not as robust and there are just a few small fruits growing. I can hardly complain as I have harvested easily over 100 cucumbers from my four plants.

One bit of information that is never on a plant tag or seed packet is how long a plant will produce. They all tell you how long it takes a seed to germinate and how long until production of the first fruit, but nowhere does it tell you how long the plant will live. Of course that variable is dependent on so many things, but some where I would like to know the average. Am I able to get the most out of the plant or has it lived it’s useful life and it’s time for me to pull it up?

Every fall I hear stories of people who have tomatoes on the vine well into October and have been getting fruit for four months. I don’t think my cucumbers are long for this world, but I am hopeful for my tomatoes.

I am praying for some rain because this heat is mighty hard on everything, especially me as I water. It has been an excellent year in the new garden. I have been well pleased with it’s bounty. I have not taken a photo of every basket I harvested, or anything I just picked and handed off to a friend, but here are some photos of my baskets as I have picked.