Last night I waited until temps dropped to 90, lol...and headed out to harvest and do some chores. The bounty was huge and every bit of it went in to work with my next door neighbor! Without hubby home to help eat eggplant, there wasn't much I could do with it, and the jalapenos and tomato processing this week would have surely turned me against gardening forever! This week has been tough, the temps alone I may be able to handle but the humidity outside has had me in a funk all week, and the next 7 days looks to be more of the same. I noticed the other day that it was so thick and hazy I had trouble making out the tomato beds at the other end of the yard! Selling at the Farmer's Market is not an option this week either, since I would have to tow the kids along and selling out of the back of the car with 2 whiny kids and 100 degree temps doesn't sound like "making good choices" to me, lol! Last night alone netted 3 lbs cherry tomatoes, 3.1 lbs jalapenos, 7 lbs eggplant, 13 oz bell peppers, 4 lbs cucumbers, & 9 lbs Heirloom tomatoes. Hopefully my neighbors' co-workers will appreciate them more than I can this week!
What did pick up my spirits a bit was the Edamame bed. Note to self: grow more of this! These plants are ready to be harvested this week and are the most well behaved little garden dwellers I have ever seen! They stay in their boundaries, can be crammed into a bed and produce tons of yummy pods per plant.
Below is a close-up of the 'Beer Friend' Edamame:
Other than the harvest, I finally got around to pulling out the dead sunflowers. They are getting a new life in my "lazy girl's birdfeeder", lol!
This evening's death and destruction took the form of bacterial wilt in my squash bed! You may remember how gorgeous the bed looked a few weeks ago...well, tonight they looked horrid and along with that were covered in cucumber beetle eggs, and they had jumped the bed and taken over my berry patch as well. I ripped out the lot of them and packed it all in the trash can. Now I have an empty bed, which I admit is exciting stuff.
Here are the 3 Hokkaido Squash that were in the bed, immature but pretty nonetheless. I was really looking forward to this since I have never grown squash and am not a big fan, but so many people rave about it that this was going to be THE YEAR I was going to choose, grow, and learn to love it! I will still try some, but will have to get it at the Farmer's Market. I ripped out the cukes from that bed too since the bugs were moving in and I already have plenty of pickles put away. I have one lone cuke vine over on my fence that will give me just enough for salads.
Now I need to research what I can put in that bed that won't be susceptible to the wilt virus that's in the soil. I will definitely grow squash again but now that I know how many bugs, etc enjoy it and how invasive it is I will plant it near the fence away from my raised beds where I can control it more effectively. The best lessons learned are from experience, right??
This made the sweaty mosquito-ridden evening bearable. Fresh picked Edamame pods cooked and chilled and sprinkled with Kosher salt and a glass of homebrew. Delicious! Now I know what I can do at night when the kids are in bed this winter instead of eating Cheese Nips and other garbage for snacking! I will be eating and freezing as much as possible and am even planting a second bed full tomorrow! Go SOYBEANS! Nature's perfect snack!
As an afterthought: I decided to add a counter to see just how much produce we are harvesting and NOT using for future planning purposes! Not that I don't love to be able to give away veggies, but it's something that would seem valuable to know!
