Harvest Monday ~ Eyeball Cucumber Edition

  This week will see the last of the beans, cucumbers and yellow squash unless the seeds I plant over the next few days actually grow in time for a fall crop.  It may be a little late in the season, but last year we wore T-shirts while trick or treating with the kids so we just might just be OK.  We got maybe 4 cucumbers total from the 12 seeds I planted because their bed gets irregular sunlight and the vines all crowded into a thick mess on one end of the trellis.  I could have guided them more and maybe it would have worked out better.  Who knows, but I'm giving that area to the fall peas and trying a few fall cukes in buckets that have been vacated by jalapenos and broccoli so it's something to think about for next year.

On to the harvest!  Thanks again to Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions for hosting harvest Monday!

July 19th brought us our first ever broccoli!  The kids were out of their minds with excitement.

(also from July 19th) This has been the week of peppers.  Last year we had maybe 2 peppers a week starting sometime in August.  What a change!  We have noticed more and more of the banana peppers with necrotic spots that could be blossom end rot, plus the leaves are getting kind of pale, so I will be amending with blood and bone meal plus a little powdered milk.  

We got our first small black krim tomato this week!  The plant seems to have beaten back the blight a little bit...I know I committed garden sacrileg by letting a sick plant stand, but my growing area is so small that it's pretty impossible for me to beat things by isolation and crop rotation.  Next year we'll be looking for resistant varieties and growing a surplus to hedge our bets.

The second broccoli cutting!  We have three plants total and were floored to have a harvest at  all considering the heat.  All three plants were harvested this week and we are now eagerly awaiting side shoots.

This is the harvest from Sunday.  I pulled the beans up completely after that and will be planting more beans and other fall veggies.  Probably half of those banana peppers have a small brown dead spot.

Today's harvest.  That green tomato is a black krim knocked down by yesterdays storm.  The red tomatoes are Early girl  and that yellow ball is the ONLY cucumber set on our tangled lemon cucumber vines.  It's quite creepy looking in person but was the best tasting cucumber I've ever grown...very mild with thin skin.

Our one lemon cuke before slicing.  It's like a peeled eyeball (thank my 6 year old for the description).

A side view of the eyeball cuke.  I totally hope I get some of these from the seeds we just planted by the end of the year.   It was SO good.