Beans and Squash and Tomatoes, Oh no …

It’s August in the garden, so the harvest includes the usual suspects, beans, squash, and finally, tomatoes in large quantities. The beans I did not bother to photograph, and I only show a sampling of the tomatoes.

 

 

Some more beets and a couple of turnips. A rabbit in the garden has discovered that beetroot tastes a lot better than just beet leaves and has been nibbling the beets. The ones above were the only survivors. I need to set a rat trap in that bed since I have more beets and spinach seeded there.

 

 

I finally got my first broccoli. This is Bay Meadows, which Fedco raves about. It was very slow to start and only now has decided to put on a growth spurt.

 

 

The ugly tomatoes on the left are Cherokee Purple from the vine that fell over. The big fruit there was 12 ounces.

 

 

Finally getting a few cucumbers. Others have had a banner year, but not me. Bacterial wilt has wiped out a large number of the vines. The large cuke in the center is a Poona Kheera, an Indian heirloom variety that is new for me. I picked the first one while still white and small, thinking it was the Crystal Apple. This one I let get bigger. When mature they are supposed to turn yellow and then brown, but all this thing did is get bigger. I have no idea how big they get, so I picked this one (it already weighs a pound) since they are still edible at any stage. I haven’t tried it yet since it takes a little planning to figure out what do do with a one pound cucumber.

 

 

The Richmond Green Apple cucumber above is an Australian heirloom that produces small roundish cucumbers, similar to Crystal Apple and Lemon. They can be eaten without peeling, just like an apple, and are sweet and crunchy. The Crystal Apple cukes were to small to pick one for comparison. For some reason both varieties were very late to produce fruit this year but the remaining vines not killed by wilt are now growing rapidly up the trellis and setting lots of fruit. So it’s a race with the cold weather to see if I get any more of these.

 

 

An assortment of peppers. The red pepper in the middle is my first Lipstick, next to a couple of Carmen. I thought these two varieties were roughly equivalent, but they are not. Carmen is much larger, much more productive and ripens faster than Lipstick. At the bottom, my first Poblanos. The one on the left has turned yellow as it starts to ripen but I picked it anyway because I want these for Chiles Rellenos.

 

 

An assortment of squash, including my first Tromboncino and just the second Costata Romanesco.

 

 

The Brandywine tomatoes are starting to color and these were picked to lessen the load on the vines.

 

 

Pineapple tomatoes above. The biggest one unfortunately cracked badly.

 

 

Finally, more Cherokee Purple on the left, to get them off the ground where things have been eating holes in them And the remaining Sunkist on the right.

 

That’s all from my garden this week. To see what is happening in other gardens around the world, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.