garden update

I must say, this year the garden has been bountiful. As opposed to last year when i got ~1 fruit per plant that I grew, this year has been whelming. We have eaten a number of meals just from the garden. I have a jar of pickles made with cucs, dill, and garlic straight from the garden.

I just looked at my tomatoes, which had given me bumper crops in the last two weeks of July but then went largely silent, and found that a second crop is on its way for many of the plants. The Brandywine plant has 10 (!) green tomatoes, black from Tula has a few, and others are coming along. I guess I will need to get some netting to keep the birds away.
I had a lot of caprese salad this summer and a lot of tomato sauce, all of which was just fabulous

pumpkins - i planted a pumpkin plant on a whim, and after doing nothing for a couple of weeks, it took off, sending out multiple vines that grow ~4 inches per day. Three beautiful green pumpkins are coming along so quickly. We will have a couple ready for Halloween to be this year's Jack and Jaqueline 'O Lantern. Bess was very intrigued by them last year.

Melons - worked out well, except for one beauty that the birds killed before ripeness. The watermelon sugar baby has one beauty under the foliage of other plants. I have one Charentais melon hanging on the trellis in a sling. I am checking it daily for ripeness.

Eggplants - wow, these are a major success story of the garden. Three of the four were great. Rosa Bianca is absolutely the most beautiful eggplant that I have ever seen. White with lavender striping, and it tastes great in eggplant parmesan. I grew Ping Tung long purple eggplants which are similarly great. some green apple eggplants for which I got seeds from the folks at "Path to Freedom".

Squash - i grew a patty pan squash plant and unfortunately we were not ready when it started producing. It was a couple of ripe squash every day. We did not know enough recipes to make it interesting. So I froze some for zuchinni bread later. I will be better prepared next year.

ok, that's it for now. I will try to get some pictures up.