2012 Veg Garden October Magic

There are two dozen or so fruits on the full size plants and dozens more on the cherry size plants left ripening after today's harvest and we are scheduled to get one inch of rain over several days this week so it looks like this season's tomatoes will give us at least one more magical basket of goodness. The hose water is just no match to our rain water and with this drought I am surprised they have done so well and think the rain will be just what they need to finish out the season with a mid October harvest!

2012 Veg Garden Winding Down

There may be one more basket like this one before the 2012 Veg Garden offers up it's last morsel. This fall has proven a little too busy to try for a late planting not to mention too dry, the driest since they started keeping track. A fairly wet spring and early summer means we are technically still a few inches above average on the year but since it's been 70+ days without more than .03 of an inch of rain that's little consolation.

2012 Veg Garden Tomato Bounty

From one tomato last week to glorious bounty this week. We're going to break out the dehydrator and see how well it works for making sun dried tomatoes. In the meantime those sweet gold nuggets are addictive and don't last long once they ripen.

2012 Veg Garden Late Summer Harvest

Purple broccoli, yellow and zucchini squash, green beans, cherry and early girl tomatoes make up this basket. The purple broccoli has a smaller, looser crown than typical green varieties and the green bean bush is performing very well considering it was planted in July. Despite the numerous flowers in the winter squash patch there is only one pumpkin and no sign at all of a butternut. Better luck next year I guess.

2012 Veg Garden Summer Squash

The first real summer squash harvest is in! The mildew was kiboshed on this side of the garden with no real damage. Turns out spraying the leaves with water early in the day is enough to keep the nasties away as unlike most mildew this one spreads in dry conditions. We ended up cutting out the most damaged leaves on the winter squash side and that left one pumpkin plant a bit bare, I hope it makes it.