The basil is still going strong. I had to cut it back by half again as it was threatening to bloom. This half pound of basil was all from a single plant. All the other plants were ripped out to make way for lettuce (which I'm hoping has time to grow for a harvest). I didn't harvest the parsley, but it has all grown back too and it getting out of control. I wonder if my townhouse mates need some dried parsley. The other part of this harvest is a pound of chard. The leaf miners have come back so I'm going to keep it harvested every week from now on to make my chore of looking for their eggs easier.
Kidney
Trail of Tears
Ottawa Cranberry
Since we were getting some wet weather this last week. I went out and picked all the dried beans. I shelled them in front of the TV as usual. It makes the chore go faster.
I'm just so surprised by the tomatoes this year. Last year my tomato harvest ended in the first week of September. I had all the tomatoes ripped out by then. This year I have about half of them ripped out, but I still have some very productive tomatoes. the Cherokee Purples put out a nice flush, but the cherries are still going strong too. And I get an occasional Market Miracle or Amish Paste. They are all sick to some degree, but not dying. And strangely they all have different symptoms. I think the only real healthy plant is GabrielleAnn. The Sungold progeny is doing amazingly well. It has grown up over my 7' fence and is now using my neighbor's lilac bush as a trellis. I can't pick the fruit they are too high, but it has been an amazing plant this year. I wish it were sweeter though. It isn't as sweet as a real Sungold.
The cucumber harvest (no photo) is slowing down dramatically. The squirrels have found that they are very tasty and they take the little tiny ones to eat. I think I might get one or two here from now on, but not very many. I've some weird thing happen to the cucumbers. I get the occasionally one that is yellower on the inside than normal. And these are very very sweet. Almost like a melon and not like a cucumber. All the cukes have been getting sweeter as time goes on, but not like those few yellowish ones. Has anyone else had this happen to them? I made some refrigerator pickles out of the pickles and put the really sweet one from this harvest on top. I'm curious about how they will taste.
- Beans 1.24 lbs
- Cucurbits 1.04 lbs
- Greens 0.98 lbs
- Herbs 0.55 lbs
- Pepper 0.06 lbs
- Tomato 10.24 lbs
- Spent this week: $0
- Total harvested this week 14.11 lbs
- Total for the year 251.35 lbs
- 2010 Tally $742.06
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.
The beans and tomatoes look good! The sweet cucumbers sound interesting, never heard of them doing that before. Are they the all female ones?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that tomatoes are still ruling our harvests. It must be that last burst of hot weather we had a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteI love the look of dried beans. How do you store them?
Dan, yes they are the all female ones.
ReplyDeleteGrafixMuse, it is very strange. It is good for my harvest tally though as I don't have much of a fall garden. I store them in glass jars. But I wait to store them until they are completely dry and then I freeze them for a few days to make sure the bugs are dead.
Your beans look great! So colorful.
ReplyDeleteI have never experienced sweetening cucumbers before. I do get more yellowing (usually from shade/contact with ground) but not the change in taste you are experiencing. The dried beans are always so pretty to look at. I have a whole patch of dried kidney beans that I am getting worried will not make it to mature status before the fall rains officially arrive. As for the tomatoes - enjoy them! I know I would be!
ReplyDeleteI haven't had that happen to my cukes. Will be interesting to see how they taste.
ReplyDeleteI'm not done harvesting my toms so I hope the weather holds up. I really enjoyed the Sungolds, this season. So sweet and delicious !
The beans are lovely ! I grew the Ottawa Cranberries you sent me in trugs with the corn and only got a few pods, unfortunately. Haven't picked them yet.
To harvest half a pound of basil all from one single plant, that must be a pretty big plant with lots of bushy side branches! Those beans sure are beautiful. How nice that your tomatoes are still producing! I'm still waiting for my Jelly Bean tomato plant to produce some ripe tomatoes, but so far, the little tomatoes have stayed stubbornly green for weeks.
ReplyDeleteYour beans are beautiful, I have never grown those kinds of beans. I wonder if your cucumber plant could be crossing with something it is next to? I had one bell pepper plant cross with a jalapeno plant next to it, spicy bell peppers.
ReplyDelete-Brenda
Oh, those beans look so pretty! It's great that your tomatoes are still producing, and squirrels are just awful this year!
ReplyDeleteBeans look beautiful. No room for dried beans in my garden. My tomatoes are in the same place. I just can not bring myself to pull out the partially sick plants with some fruit on them.
ReplyDeleteI am not having the same experience with cucumbers but I planted a persian variety this year and they are getting sweeter as the season progresses. What is interesting is that while in previous years the cucumbers are gone in August, mine have picked up in August and I continue to pick 1-4 a day. Lots of little fruit also. I'll take them as long as I can get them.
Gorgeous harvest! I love, love, love your tomatoes. I am hoping that the weather cools enough here for my new tomato plants to set fruit when its time. Crazy, huh? Let's see, I am hoping for temperatures under 90F in November. Ya gotta love Florida.
ReplyDeleteThat's so strange about your cukes. Do they at least taste good sweet? Maybe you have some kind of weird mutation or the parent crossed with some sort of melon accidentally. Are you planning to save any seeds from that plant? It would be interesting to see what further develops next year.
ReplyDeleteI need to grow some beans like those. I like the looks of those Ottawa Cranberry. Perhaps that will be next year's new vegetable for the garden.
ReplyDeletesweetlocal, thanks
ReplyDeletekitsapFG, this isn't the skin yellowing. The skin is the normal green color. It is the flesh itself that is yellowing.
Miss M, Too bad you didn't get many. Mine aren't doing as well this year I think as last year, but they are still growing. I quit watering them a couple of weeks ago hoping they would all dry soon.
thyme2garden, it is a very bushy plant. Anytime it threatens to flower, I cut it back by half. That really makes it branch out like crazy. Not to mention giving me a ton of basil. Last year I barely got any basil. This year I don't know what to do with it all.
Sense of Home, nope. There is nothing next to it. It is the only of its species around. The closest other one is my neighbor's cukes. They are about 100ft away and on the other side of his house.Weird though. And his cukes are just normal cukes anyway.
EG, the groudhog was worse. At least the squirrels didn't start until a couple of weeks ago. So I had plenty of cukes to pickle.
johanna, I've never had my cukes get sweeter over the summer like these have. And I've grown this variety for years. I think it likes the heat. At least as long as I keep it watered.
Carol, lol yeah that is hot for November even for you. I hope you get your cooler weather so you can finally get fruit.
Thomas, Yes they taste fabulous sweet. They are quite delicious. Even the regular ones that aren't like melons and are just sweeter than normal are a real treat to eat. Cucumber salads with them taste so wonderful. I can't save seed. They are gynoceious hybrids. Which means they only produce female flowers. They can't make seed unless they get pollinated by some other cuke. I love them because this variety produces well even in our cool summers.
Kaytee, they are very pretty beans. I got them from the Ottawa Gardener. They were an unknown cranberry bean so I named them for her.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear more about the dried beans, like how many plants per pound of yield, how much room they take, etc. I think they'd be fun to grow, and delicious to eat.
ReplyDeleteAnd the cuke thing is weird. I am missing my cukes, sigh. I need to figure out better timing.
Lovely beans, the sweet cucumber is interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm lucky, I'll get some dry runner beans, the cucumber beetles have gotten into them, that's okay I grow them for hummers, the beetles can have the beans, hopefully there are few good seeds left in the pods for me.
Our tomatoes have been a bit slow this year which seems so odd given how warm it was this year. Your beans look so pretty!
ReplyDeleteMy husband loves black beans. Would the Trail of Tears beans be good to try? I live in Dallas, TX, Zone 8-ish. I tried growing bush beans (Burpee's Bush Blue Lake 274) this summer with terrible results. I think leafhoppers were the culprits but I only ever found *two* bugs and they took out 2 square feet of bean plants. I think I either underestimated their capabilities or their numbers...
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne - great beans! How many plants do you need for that big of a harvest?
ReplyDeleteWow... those are some beautiful beans!
ReplyDeleteYou've had an awesome harvest this year Daphne... even with your big move!
The grasshoppers are giving me a lot of trouble... I'm totally thinking chickens next year!!!
Hey, I'm not the last to post for once. Beautiful harvest, as always. I especially loved the dry bean photos. I'm trying Cherokee Trail of Tears for the first time this year, but mine are just now flowering. Loved your last post on making and canning applesauce. What a project!
ReplyDeleteI've been getting cucumbers with yellow skin. And yet also regular green ones. I haven't tried to see if they're from the same plant, as i have several plants in a wire cage.
ReplyDeleteI had guessed that the seeds were not actually cucumber seeds or some cross. I guess if there are any more, I should cut one open instead of just throwing them in the compost pile.
Your beans look so nice makes me want to try beans next year! That is what is so bad about sharing all our harvests with each other! You see all the stuff you want to try and don't have enough room or time for!
ReplyDeleteI agree with all about the beauty of your beans. I've let my basil go to seed so I'm not going to get much out of it. When frost threatens, I'll pick off the remaining leaves.
ReplyDeleteWow, all that basil from one plant! That is so awesome!
ReplyDeleteThe beans are so pretty! What strange cukes, I've never heard of them developing yellow flesh and being sweet. But, cukes and melons are very closely related, so perhaps there's some melon genes popping up in that plant? Summer has been treating you and your garden really well this year, lucky you.
ReplyDeleteThe beans look beautiful! I'm happy that your tomato harvest continues. They are by far the best summer crop.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you wind up doing with all of your dried beans!?
ReplyDeleteoh Daphne, your dried beans are gorgeous! how much space do you allocate to them? i grow some each year, but i rarely grow enough to amount to more than one good pot of beans.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that our tomatoes are still producing fruit as well. Normally my parents' tomatoes have quit by this time, due to blight, but the last time I saw their plants there was still a bounty of green fruits on them! Must be a weird (good) year for tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteI wish I was your neighbor, because I am completely out of parsley. I have been refraining from buying any because I have some tiny plants, just none that I would be able to harvest from yet. It's killing me!
Whew, I made it before Tuesday! I got so busy cleaning my garden shed today, I forgot it was Monday.
ReplyDeleteThose dry beans are gorgeous. I don't think my pods are ever going to begin drying. I cheated and took the beans out of one fat purple pod of Trail of Tears, and laid them out on the patio table to dry. They just got small and shriveled :-(
Congrats on all those dried shell beans. I tried hard this year, but the bean beetles are still partying out in my bean patch. I'm sure you'll enjoy them!
ReplyDeleteKathy
Beautiful beans and lovely tomatoes! I don't think I have the patience to wait for the beans to dry on the vine.
ReplyDeleteAli, I'll probably do that post as one of my round up posts in the fall. I usually look back over how things did.
ReplyDeleteMac, my runner beans haven't done well this year. The flowers are pretty, but they didn't set until just recently as the weather has cooled down. I'm hoping that I get some seed for next year.
mamaraby, it is odd. I would expect them to be really early. Well a little early. They still needed time to grow. Mine were about 2 weeks faster than last year, but then again last year was horrible.
Katrina, yes they make good black beans. They are very vigorous growers too. They would probably top a 10' fence if you gave them that. I never do of course since I can't pick them that high, but they do try to take over the world.
Stevie, well I'll probably do a round up post later on in the fall once all the harvests are in, but the Ottawa Cranberry and Trail of Tears were planted in a foot wide strip (double row) along the back of the fence. They have about 24' of fence, though the last half is a pretty crappy growing area as it gets morning shade from the maple tree and afternoon shade from the fence. This is the second harvest I've gotten from them and there is still more to come.
Toni, my mom had issues with grasshoppers in Colorado. They could really eat a garden down. She put turkeys on two sides of the garden and ducks and geese on one side. There was just one side left unprotected. That worked pretty well.
Lou, applesauce is so easy compared to something like salsa though. Peeling all those tomatoes was hard. I love making applesauce. It is just so easy. I do need another canning pot though. Maybe I'll pick one up today. Or maybe I'll just pick up more jars.
ReplyDeleteKaren Anne, some cukes do have yellow skin naturally or they do get yellow skin when they age too. Once they are ripe their skin turns yellow (not so good for eating, but you can save seed).
Shawn Ann, I know. I want to grow so many things next year.
Emily, frost? Ack I'm not even thinking about that yet. I wonder if we will have a really late year or not.
meemsnyc, it was very nice.
michelle, it might be some melon gene popping up, but I'm thinking it is environmental. It hadn't done it before. But I can't figure out what is causing it. Disease? Cooler temps? Wild temperature swings? Some bug?
balcony paradise, and they keep coming. I'm shocked they are still producing so well.
Ribbit, so many things. I love dried beans. They go into soups and Mexican food mostly. I make baked beans out of the cranberry beans sometimes.
a tasteful garden, for the cranberry and trail of tears beans I have a section of fence that is 24' long (and sadly part in shade). They get a foot wide for a double row of beans. I grow other things in front. This is the second harvest and there is more to come.
Prairie Cat, it is a weird but good year for tomatoes. I'm not complaining even if I was sad to lose my lettuce in June. I'd gladly give you some if you lived close.
Granny, that is a good thing to be doing on a Monday. I wish I had a shed to clean out. Well I do have a bike shed, but no garden shed yet. Oh no. You could always use them as shelling beans. Cook them up right away.
ReplyDeletekathy, I read about that on your blog. So sad. I've yet to see one in my garden. I think community gardens are very hard in the bug department.
Nartaya, They do take some time, but they are a really easy crop (if you don't get bean beetles). You just plant them and let them go for a while.
Your dried beans are lovely! Do post pics of your garden where these are planted. Just curious, to see how they grow and how much space is required. I have cow peas planted and they are vining plants. Haven't experienced the sweet melon taste in cucumbers, but my guess would be, there might have been a melon seed in the cucumber packet?
ReplyDeleteAll those gorgeous beans! I just can't make myself love beans. Maybe fresh beans are better than dried?
ReplyDeleteRandomGardener, I will post pics, or at least I hope so. I've planted some spinach in front so hoping to do a garden update soon. It has photos of where the beans are. Nope not a melon seed. Many of its cukes are just normal. It is the occasional one that is very sweet. So strange.
ReplyDeleteMelissa, well I dry them so they are dried beans. I love them though. I do have a few garden hates, namely beets and arugula. I just think all of our tastes are different. You should grow what you love. Since I love dried beans, that is what I grow.