By now the garden isn’t looking so great. That’s a general observation. Most of the plants are on their last legs. There have been years that we have our first frost at the end of September, However, this year it will probably be much, much later than that. It’s still getting to be about 80F during the day. Nights are starting to get cooler, however, so it is wonderful as we can keep the house cool.

Before I get to the garden, I will say that the pumpkin that is growing outside the fence on the road side is still there. The government has not come by and made pumpkin puree out of it with their mowers! I can actually harvest it any time now as it is starting to change color and would continue to ripen.

I won’t try to hide the sad condition of the plants now - you will see wilt and fungus on the plants of the pumpkins - some of them.

Zucchini

The zucchini is fading fast - at least the first planting. The second planting is doing fine, In fact, the first planting of zucchini - the plants are finished. I’m getting plenty of crookneck squash from the first planting however.

The second planting of zucchini - both green and yellow have started to produce, however.

I’ve also gotten my first crookneck squash from the second planting as well. (I have 4 of each in the second planting. - 4x green zucchini, 4x yellow zucchini, and 4x yellow crookneck squash.)

Crookneck Squash

The yellow crookneck squash seems to be going strong. It seemed to have a slow start to give me some squash, but is still doing just fine.

The second planting of crookneck squash is just now starting to produce.

Corn

The corn is going well. I’m watering it now. I planted the seeds in two different times - about 2-3 weeks apart. We are eating corn from the first planting but have not gotten any from the second part though I saw what looks like some starting to look ripe.

We’ll see if it actually ripens and I get some. I hope so. It all depends on the weather. I sure hope so!

This corn is the most beautiful corn we have had for years. Literally!

Putting it under the plastic mulch with the soaker hose was exactly what contributed to this!

Plus, I believe that this maybe the variety helps (Golden Bantam)! The last time we had such beautiful corn, when we bit it into it, it was a bitter disappointment - it was NOT sweet corn! Yes, I had bought sweet corn seed. Alas, it wasn’t so in reality.

But not so this year.

So, we are enjoying the corn. If we cook more than we need, I’m taking it off the cob and sticking it in the freezer for use with chili. I’m not going to try to can a lot or freeze it on the cob. It’s more work than I want to do . So we are just eating a lot each day now!

Sunflowers

The sunflowers now all have flowers. the Tallest is 10 ft. 4 inches tall. That’s tall!

Some of them are shorter. They all self-seeded from the row of plants I had last year. I will take what I can get - and I’m totally impressed by these plants that grew on their own with no extra fertilizer, etc.

Green Beans

These could definitely be better. I could have done a better job at placement, weeding and now harvesting. The day after I write this, I hope to continue to harvest them. They are growing with nettles so I need to do it with gloves on. They are totally fun, though and I will probably freeze what I do get in order to put them in stir fry or casseroles or something similar.

Tomatoes

The plants don’t look so great, but they are giving me cherry tomatoes, especially. I have only gotten one bigger tomato so far and a couple more on the vine.

I think I just didn’t have enough sunshine where they are on our back patio.

There is a lot of shade. Also, maybe not enough fertilizer.

Anyway, we are getting enough cherry tomatoes - in the dark purple-ish color, red, and yellow pear shape. All are tasty. All are wonderful. We can pick a handful or little bowlful pretty much every day or every other day. Next year if I do them again, I will put them in a sunnier spot. They would just do so much better with more sun!

For what conditions I have, they are doing ok. The trees that are creating shade, however, provide us a cooler environment in general, so that’s important when we have hot summers.

Hot cherry peppers

The plants still look great.

I have harvested a few of them - and they are pretty hot. According to the heat index, they are the lowest of the “hot type” of hot peppers. By comparison, a jalepeno pepper is from 2000-8000 SHU (the higher number is hotter).

The ones I have are 35,000 SHU.

So, I put only two of these tiny things in a vegetable casserole dish thing I made with zucchini, potatoes, green beans, etc. and it was enough for me! And for that, I took out the seeds, which are notorious for being the hottest part!

I was in the garden the other day and suddenly I looked down and I saw a red one! Wow. These little peppers are only 1-2” wide - mostly like 1-1.5” across. So far, only one red one. But that’s the beauty of peppers - we can easily use them when they are green.

Pumpkins

We have harvested some of them - on September 8 - my husband helped me bring in the larger ones.

There are still quite a few in the garden - but we’re leaving them there now. I wanted to get the ripest ones out of the garden for a couple of reasons - I didn’t want them to rot because I’m continuing to water for the ones that aren’t ready OR thieves to get them.

So, we brought the ones I showed in the back of the van above from the garden. I have also brought back small ones many times in bags until I have most of the sugar sweet ones - commonly called pie pumpkins. The vines had mostly died back so it seemed to be a sign that they were finished.

So here are pictures of some that are still in the garden

And here is the status of what we’ve brought to the house so far.

I was glad we went ahead and harvested those very orange ones already because Mike noticed that one of them had a bit of slug damage.

I told him I’d see if it self-healed or began to spoil by checking it every day (they had eaten through the outer skin). Well, we noticed that it was starting to get brown around where the slug had eaten, so as I work on this blog post, I am cooking it before the spot gets any bigger. If I wait much longer the bad part will take over the whole pumpkin and make it inedible. Once it all cools, I’ll put it in the food processor (the cooked pumpkin) and package it into 2 cup portions and put it in the freezer. It’s not the most flavorful pumpkin ever - but it’s pumpkin- and perfectly edible.

I had a vision of the small jack-be-little pumpkins growing all over the fence of the garden - completely filling it up with decorative pumpkins. I still think it would be cool. However, my vision is far from being fulfilled. However, a tiny bit of it is. :)

And there you go. Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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