In the garden: Harvest time already?

Our pumpkins were ready to be picked today, can you believe it?! The two pumpkin plants that sprouted out of the compost pile produced these six cuties. A couple of them look like they came from two blossoms, like Siamese twins. Double butt pumpkins.

The boys are already excited about pumpkin pie and pumpkin cookies! They don't seem to care about turning them into Jack-o-lanterns.


Also picked a handful of green beans. They're not doing fabulously, but better than last year.

When my friend Mark gardened in our yard, he grew millions of green beans, so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I think the Three Sisters idea isn't working so well -- the corn is shading the beans too much. But last year they burned up before going to seed, so who knows.

Cherry tomatoes!

This was not the best year for full-sized tomatoes in my garden. I've learned something about the effects of erratic weather, however. And next year I will put more effort into pruning and propping.

Our little heat wave in May produced hundreds of blooms, but then it cooled down so much in early June that the tomatoes got bigger and bigger, but stayed green. The last few days, I've been picking some big, beautiful red tomatoes -- but tossing a few sunburned ones to the chickens, too.

The Native American popcorn is ready, too! Eldest helped pick these, and then took them inside to shuck. He was so excited to have grown our own popcorn! Some of the ears need to dry a bit more. And then we'll have a movie night!

Eldest has been my biggest helper in the garden this year. A few mornings he's gone out and watered before I've even woken up! He loves harvesting the most, though.

He also likes to rescue helpless Black Widow spiders from a sad and squishy death under my shoe...


I mentioned that I harvested our garlic already. It was pretty easy to grow. It just takes patience, because you have to wait about six months. I waited longer than I needed to.

I didn't even use seed garlic, like you're supposed to. I just broke up a few heads of organic garlic from the grocery store, pushed them into some loose, compost-amended soil, and watered.

They do need regular deep watering. And I mulched when the weather started to warm up. When the tops start to turn brown, bend them over halfway down, so the nutrients go into the bulbs, not into making flowers. That's it!

Now if someone could tell me what to do with these potato plants. They look so pretty, don't they?

I think it's time to pull up new potatoes, but we've gotten so many in our CSA box, I've just left them in the ground.


Our first butternut squash fruit popped out this week! While the summer squash planted by the corn has been prolific, the squash and melons on the south side of the garden have been really slow to develop. I amended the soil just as heavily, and they should be getting enough water, so we'll see.

Well, I think that's everything. The fig tree is so full of figs, there's no way I'll be able to process them all. The birds and beetles will get their fair share this year! But we have a few weeks to go, I think.