Long time no post, not that I have been particularly busy doing anything just haven't had much blogger gumption I guess. Last week we had the last half of our windows changed by a local company, I wish I had done them myself. They goofed the sashes, we ordered the top sashes 1/3 of the height and the bottom sashes 2/3 of the height to give them a more historic look. They ordered a 40/60 split so the new ones are out 2" compared to the first half we had installed. Thankfully they will change them at their cost but we now have to have the whole ordeal all over again, erg! Anyway onto the harvests already.
The weather has been pretty chilly lately, no frost yet so that is good news. Our first frost may be Oct 14th but that is based on the ever changing long term forecast, who knows? With the colder weather setting in I decided to harvest all the squash, melons & most tomatoes today. Now the only warm season crops left are a few tomatoes and a bunch of peppers that will be harvested shortly. Here is the veggie haul:
I harvested all the Vermont Cranberry Beans that were shared by
The Conservative Gardener . I planted a whole row of these but unfortunately all rotted except two. But that's alright as now I have lots of seed for next year. I should have harvested a few of them a little sooner with the wet weather we have been having. I would say 90% of them are in good shape. I will share a photo of these when they are dried for comparison.
Well on the seed saving topic I harvested the cucumbers I left on for seed saving. The middle one looks perfect for seed but the ends ones might be a little under ripe still, I will leave them on the counter to ripen further. From what I have read you want the cucumbers to turn orange for seed saving.
Now for the squash, I harvested three delicata squash (seed shared by
Skippy's Vegetable Garden ) and one large Red Kuri Squash. The big one will probably be pureed and I will keep the delicata's for roasting this fall/winter.
I brought in the last of the Jersey Devil paste tomatoes today, finally the last of them had started to turn color. I will combine these with the rest of the ones in the fridge & freezer and make salsa. Post to come about that soon.
A couple Purple Calabash tomatoes had just turned so I harvested them today. There is a few left that are still pretty green, I am hopefully they will turn soon. Last year I hastily ripped out all the tomatoes plants as soon as the weather turned colder and regretted it. This year I am leaving them in until they are dead and in turn am still harvesting a few tomatoes here and there, sounds good to me!
Finally I picked all the french melons that were a decent size. Here we have three Savor F1 and one Petit Gris (greener one). It has definitely been to cold for melons to do anything so I will allow these to ripen further in the house. I think they need more ripening, hard to tell with these french melons. I am looking forward to melon and prosciutto if they are any good.
Here are all the Purple peppers that the squirrels left me. The seed for these peppers came from everyone's favorite Granny. Half of these went in my Salsa and the others are still awaiting their destiny.
and more peppers.... in this basket is green & red Big Chili II as well as Poblano peppers. About half of these went into the Salsa as well. The rest will be dried or roasted/froze for later use.
In this basket is four small Rosa Bianca eggplants, not sure what I am going to do with them yet, hopefully something that involves lots of cheese =D There also is some broccoli, looks like this is the last of the broccoli.
After Sunday mornings frost these are definitely the last tomatoes of the season. These are Velvet Red cherry tomatoes that the The Conservative Gardener shared. They were really nice and sweet. Very interesting velvety leaves and fruit too, the fuzz easily rubs off the fruit by the way.
