(Oops. The title was supposed to be Mid-August Garden and Food Preservation Report.)
It's definitely harvest time now! I gave up on weeding quite some time ago, and have not been as aggressively battling the ground squirrels, because I need to focus on gathering in the fruits of my labors. Fortunately, the varmints have not been causing as much trouble as before. But they are still around, kicking up mounds of dirt here and there. One of them even had the nerve to tunnel right up into one of my cucumber plants, which did survive with only minor damage.
If you look closely at the above photo, you can see the hole in the middle. I put poison pellets down there, and added a rock on top. That little cucumber actually grew big enough to eat, despite the disruption to the plant.
The green beans produced very well. I could have kept on picking and canning them, but I needed to move on to other crops. I offered the rest to a neighbor, but she hasn't been able to get over here to deal with them. If necessary, I can just pull up the plants and take them to her pigs!
The zucchini and yellow summer squash are producing at a reasonable rate. So far I have been able to keep up with using them, including sharing a few with friends. I ended up with three varieties of the yellow squash: Gold Rush and Gold Finch, both from the Farmers' Market, and also Early Prolific Straightneck Squash that I started from seed. They are all very good.
The tomatoes are beginning to ripen, both the Romas and the Pik-Reds. I inadvertently planted them too close together, so it's an absolute jungle now. I have one Bronze Torch tomato plant, but none of those are ripe yet. Nor are the yellow pear tomatoes. I have been freezing these whole, with the intention of making tomato sauce and salsa sometime in the fall when I have time for such things.
Last week I dug a hill of potatoes to see how they were coming along. This hill looked great! The bag of seed potatoes I bought contained three varieties. This happens to be purple potatoes. They look quite peculiar on one's plate, but taste just fine.
This variety of strawberry is supposedly Everbearing, but I am going to call them August-Bearing, because that's when they decide to turn red. I don't have a large strawberry patch, so they are trickling along 2-4 cups at a time. I wash and freeze the best ones, and pop the rest into my mouth as I go.
Last weekend I spent three days and three nights at my daughter's house babysitting their two children so she and her husband could enjoy a mini-vacation by themselves. It went well, but I came home feeling rather wrung out. And then I found all these cucumbers in the garden the next morning. They went nuts while I was gone! I turned the largest ones into refrigerator pickles and cucumber sour cream salad (a great recipe from my mother-in-law, which I should share some day, but not right now). The smaller ones became 5 quarts of dill pickles, but even some of them were a bit on the large side.
Wednesday I decided it was time to harvest an ear of corn and see if it was ready. This particular ear was perfect! Since then I have picked 5 more ears, two of which were also perfect, and two of which weren't quite as ripe as they could have been. One of those had an odd twin inside the husk:
Yesterday I harvested all the beets, about 12 pounds total. All sizes were represented, so I chose to keep out the biggest ones to just cook and eat. The others I canned. The photo shows the recent dill pickles, the beets, and an amazingly large onion I pulled yesterday as well. It's a Caliber onion.
The winter squash are coming along nicely. In the above photo you can see three Red Kuri squashes on their way to becoming dark orange/red. Those two plants only produced 5 squashes. One of those plants has struggled from the beginning, going wilt-y as soon as the day gets a bit too warm for it. The Sweet Mamas produced a lot more than that; you can see one on the right.
I have found green peppers to be an unreliable crop here, yet it looks as if we will have a few! I picked one already, but it was still a bit bitter.
I'm so glad I scattered marigolds throughout the garden! They add such a cheery splash of color.
I only saved a few of my old gladiola bulbs for this year, intending to buy new ones. I didn't get around to making that purchase, so I only have about a dozen glads. So far, this is the only one to bloom, but I see another spike in the photo.
I am glad I got as much done in the garden yesterday as I did; late yesterday afternoon the smoke from area wildfires poured into our area, and the air quality today is very bad. It's a great day to stay indoors and write a Hive post, take naps, and read a library book. My aged mini-dachshund loves it when I take it easy all day; it's easier for him to keep track of where I am, and that really seems to matter these days.