Come September, the garden’s many flowers were tall and blooming all over the place. Beans were cascading in waves over the eastern fence and our many tomatoes were fat.
Our well-maintained basil plants were still going strong, fending off the slugs and beetles, and we were able to take a second solid half-pound of leaves for a giant batch of pesto. We still hope to take a third.
One of the Shishito peppers grew its way into a garden clip, which I discovered on our tomato canning day. Very slimming!
Our lone Kobocha squash turned out not to have any siblings after all, but it was a welcome addition, keeping lookout high up at its post in the shady corner of the south bed.
And gorgeous harvests were still rolling in. These were probably the last of our okra, which became stricken with disease and were little more than sticks within a few days.
Green pole beans were kicking out large and frequent harvests.
We had planted a few bush beans as a late-season experiment, about three weeks ago, in spots like this former corn corner which had recently open up. It’s our first time trying bush beans in fact. I also wanted to try black fabric mulch to keep the weeds, disease and insect damage to a minimum. Not at all a fan of its appearance—’d rather be looking at soil… we will see if the results are worth the ugliness. Maybe I will invent a soil-print landscape fabric so it looks like you’re looking at dirt.
Our Hot Portugal Peppers, essentially unmentioned in this blog until this point, were finally beginning to get some color. We had hoped these guys would be ready a month ago for use in our pickling brine. They might be tasty but they arrived too late and too large (about six inches) for that purpose. We’ll find a use for ’em!
More harvests of Japanese eggplant, Shishitos, and beans were coming in regularly. We probably love these long ones the best of the eggplants, as they are prolific, tasty and easy to just pick and throw right on the grill.
We still have hopes that clusters of large Brandywine tomatoes will ripen over the next week or two. Otherwise it’s fried green tomatoes for dinner. There’s a solid four or five pounds of them still on the vine… fingers crossed.
A few pole bean tendrils which had gone adventuring in the neighbors’ tree had escaped my clutches and found enough sunshine to put out a few nice fruit for the harvest.
A rare shot from the top floor showing our little corner of the world from above.
Our second harvest of beets came in nicely. We didn’t wait as long this year to pull these guys and they tasted better this time around. First we threw the leaves into a stir fry, then blanched the stalks which ended up in omelettes, and lastly roasted the roots in the oven. One of my favorites.
