We have figs! Well, almost. As much as I love the start of the spring berries, I sometimes forget how awesome the later summer is for fruit. The berries are at an end, with the peaches soon to follow, but the plums are still divine and the figs are just starting to show up. Both at the farmers market and in our yard.
The tree took a hit in the late spring with a frost, but it has bounced back nicely over the summer and is pushing out plenty of fruit. Now the race to enjoy them before the critters is on as we wait for them to start to ripen. Hopefully we'll be able to propagate a few more in the years to come so that we have plenty regardless of the birds, squirrels and bugs!
As for the rest of the garden this past month, it has been hit or miss, as usual. We finally pulled off our first watermelon. There was a lot of rain over the last few weeks and we had a number of them start to rot. I went ahead and pulled this one off so it wouldn't have the same fate.
Not too bad. Definitely not the sweetest watermelon I've ever had, but still always nice to have something make it to maturity to harvest! There are a few more little guys on the vine that don't seem to be growing much more, so they might get the axe soon, too.
On the continued success side of things, our Zucchino Rampicante is still pushing out the big boys! This one was closer to the bed, so it actually looped around a bit instead of hanging straight like most of the others. I've been giving some away in addition to continuing to cook some in every which way I can think of.
Another three got pulled off the vine today. It still amazes me how resilient some squashes can be! Speaking of squash, we had a volunteer pop up in one of the beds.
I though it might be a Candy Roaster, but upon closer look at the emerging baby fruit I think it might actually be butternut. Which we have had great success with before. Last year's volunteer plant gave us about a dozen squash! I'm glad we have plenty of space to just let some of these grow as they wish.
Another success ahead...
Eggplant! Specifically Satsuma Long. Another fun new variety from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. It has been a few years since we grew eggplant, so it is nice to have some growing again. Should be just a few more days or so until we can harvest the first few.
I'll finish out with the beans we have growing from one of my Rancho Gordo orders: Christmas Lima Beans. They've taken a while to really get going, but they've been taking off lately. Plenty of pods growing, so we'll see how much we can actually harvest. Even if we don't get a ton, it should be enough to save for another round of planting next spring.
We did get a decent amount of cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, but the larger heirloom tomatoes were once again set upon by the squirrels and the hornworms still keep popping up on occasion to eat their fill. The cukes that we put on the porch in pots did well for a bit, but then the summer heat was too much to handle. Definitely a learning experience with that! The other melons also never really took off, nor did the first planting of pumpkins. We think they needed to be put in a spot with better soil.
@dksart has his marching orders for planting some more items in the next few weeks for some autumn harvesting. I'm trying to do a better job of planning for the season ahead since we still have lots of warm weather left before the first frost. We don't always capitalize on the long season as well as we could. Hopefully this year is different!
Thanks to @riverflows for keeping the fun going for another round of the monthly Garden Journal Challenge. I always enjoy seeing what the other gardeners on Hive are up to--like @erikah, @enjar, @farm-mom/ @thebigsweed, and @zekepickleman. Among all the many others who share what they have growing!
Happy gardening friends!
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