End of the Season Garden Pictures You May Have Missed Since I Didn't Post Them.

Here are the end-of-season harvests and garden pictures taken during my blogger hiatus:

Six types of eggplant!

It's hard to see what happened here, but this is my row of huge bushy tomatoes after it fell over.  The welds on my tomato cages just gave out and collapsed into a mess of metal stakes and hoops.  Clearly I need to use something else next year.

Harvesting in the rain gives everything a nice glossy look.

This was definitely the year of the pepper.

Carrots in buckets were a complete success!

The kids were very excited about the different colors.

They would BEG to go harvest carrots.

I really don't remember what type these are, but they tasted good and were 4-6 inches long.

I will buy another packet of these rainbow carrots to keep the kids interested, but they honestly didn't taste much different than the orange carrots.

This year's pitiful onion harvest.

The broccoli is actually still sending off shoots that we pick now and then.  The weather here in Pittsburgh has been unseasonably warm.

One of the last harvests.  There were a ton of baby peppers on the vines when the first killing frost hit.

My Turkish Orange eggplant took FOREVER to ripen anything.

The harvest when we pulled most of the pepper and tomato plants.

Heirloom tomatoes in various stages of ripening.

A small, late garden harvest.

This is the final "harvest" from mid-November.  Beet greens, a few peas and carrots (even ball shaped ones) that I missed earlier, a handful of mostly-ripe Turkish Orange Eggplants and some peppers that somehow survived multiple killing frosts.   I'm not sure those broccoli plants will ever die.

I know I missed quite a few harvests, but this is a good overview of those last few months.  The weather that was so uncooperative this past spring really seems to have worked out well in terms of garden production this fall.  We could have planted several things that I just didn't think we'd have time for....oh well.

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden: Who knew?

Today we took a largely unplanned trip to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and I had the pleasure of being able to photograph a really cool little educational veggie garden set up in front of the Museum!  Here's a quick photo tour that highlights some really neat ideas that I just might need to steal next year.

The garden is mostly raised beds and containers made from clay drainage pipes (or something like them).  It is situated in a little outdoor nook between the registration lobby and the gift shop.

I'm not big on fruitless flowers, but these are really pretty.  They were probably planted among the veggies to attract pollinators.

Is this purple broccoli in the front?  Or something else...I just don't know.

This faux (or real) log was planted with several herbs.  The vertical clay pipes were also planted with herbs and small veggies, and surrounded a long raised bed.  Such a cool idea!  

Brussel Sprouts

An Asian eggplant of some type.

Another beautiful and healthy eggplant...much healthier than my own at least.

Rain barrels!  They had a rotating composter too but I think I only snapped it in the background once or twice.  

More clay pipes were used as planters along the wall further in.  There are also some amazing  rough hewn wooden benches to sit on.

I just can't get over what a great idea those pipes are.  I have probably seen a ton of them laying around and never thought twice about using them in the garden.  Being square makes them quite a bit more useful than the round pots as they can be used as a border or lined up against each other for more stability.

A view from the end of one of those wooden benches.  The raised beds were quite high off the ground.  You can see a tiny bit of the city skyline in the background.

This is the best shot I could get of the long bed created with a border of clay pipe containers.  

A beautiful heirloom that I didn't see a tag for.

Tomatoes on the same plant but less ripe.  I MUST grow some like this next year.

Chard  :)

This photo is on the way home.  You can tell how many kids probably feed these squirrels.  This fat little guy didn't even blink when my son walked 2 feet from him.

This one just sat a few feet above us quietly observing.

A view of the beautiful day we had here from the car ride home.  I shot that through my windshield (while my husband drove) if you can believe it.

The Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden itself actually has a blog, which you can find here if you'd like to take a look.  They host several educational workshops for kids and schools, though I've never been to one since we just discovered this garden today.  I love finding new gardens around town :)  

Harvest Monday: OMG Tomatoes Edition

So many pretty tomatoes this week!  I know there would be quite a bit more if the plants were healthier, but it's hard to complain too much when so many others have lost more plants than I even started with.

We also yanked our broccoli today in favor of some fall kohlrabi since it was practically done putting out side shoots, and we got the super-diseased squash out to make room for more beans.   I would still like to attempt more summer squash, but will likely do so in the back yard in buckets to avoid the squash-killing plague that is totally out of control out front.

Anyway, on to the harvest!  Thanks again to Daphne for hosting Harvest Mondays...it's always fun to see what the blogosphere is harvesting :)

Wednesday's harvest (that big guy is our first pineapple tomato).  The kids LOVE the tiny little orange sweet peppers there. 

Friday's Harvest.  Our first totally healthy cabbage!   Last year they were all destroyed by bugs...this year I only grew one but wish I had a bunch more!

Sunday's Harvest.  This picture was taken with the wrong camera setting so it's much darker than it should be.  That is the last green zucchini from the downey mildew infected squash plants.

Today's Harvest.  The banana peppers are still afflicted with some weird disease that acts like blossom end rot except the spots uniformly form an inch or so ABOVE the blossom end.  Very weird. 

Fall planting time!

It's a little late for fall planting in Pittsburgh, but I still feel pretty accomplished since this is the first year I managed to get a fall crop in the ground at all.  Getting everything planted meant pulling a lot of what was there, even some things that might have produced more if left in the ground.  Ultimately, I pulled anything past it's prime, diseased, or too crowded to really be worth the space.  Things I removed include:

1)  All bush beans - The yellow Arikara beans CAN be picked young and eaten in the pod, but we found them to be pretty fibrous and unpleasant.  We didn't plant enough to shell though, so I decided to pull them and plant the space with fall broccoli.  The other bush beans were past their prime, though it seems like the purple might have produced again if allowed...I decided to try and get a fall crop from new seeds instead.  We'll see if this gamble pays off.

2) Yellow Squash and one of the Pan Patty plants - The yellow squash were just covered in disease and the last few fruits had rotted on the plant.  The pan patty seemed generally healthy but was HUGE and showed many signs of Squash Vine Borer damage so I pulled it in favor of planting beets.  The area taken up by the plant can double the planting space for beets, plus I have 3 pan patty plants left.

3)  All cucumbers - These were pulled due to the unlikelihood of getting any kind of solid crop.  The leaves on many plants were wilting and several vines were killed by some type of bacteria.  The vines were also all clumped together on one end of a chicken wire trellis because I didn't properly direct them at the beginning.  There are several free buckets in which I will be planting cucumbers to possibly get a fall crop and I'll use the now vacated trellis for peas.  I have seeds but it might be a better idea to swing by Garden Dreams to see if they have any seedlings left.

Anyway, today we planted 3 buckets of carrots, 3 types of bush bean, 3 types of beet and 2 kinds of pea (snap and snow).  I also did a general clean up of the garden, pulled a bunch of weeds, and moved some things around.  I'll have bigger post after the fall planting is done tomorrow, but here are some of today's sights:

A mini watermelon cut from the vine by a bunny...a bunny that should be living in fear of me ever catching it.

The nest over my composter is now empty, but this little birdy was roaming among my hay.  It seemed young so I think it's one of the chicks, but I have no idea if this is normal bird behavior or not.

Okra!  No idea when to pick it, but I don't think it's ready yet.

This little yellow lemon cucumber was left behind after I pulled the plants.  I have to cut it out of the wire.

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.