This translates to very diminished harvests:
I did a final harvest of winter squash. Here is a Neck Pumpkin (also called Crookneck Squash), an Early Butternut Hybrid, and a so-called Jack O'Lantern pumpkin that would be a pretty pathetic jack o'lantern.
I like to grow tall sunflowers, but doing this has been challenging in recent years for some reason. I did get a couple this year, and here's the best head. It's a variety called "Giant White-Seeded."
I'm trying a new technique to harvest sunflower seeds. Instead of trying to let them dry on the flower, where they usually mold, I pried them out soft and damp. I'm drying them in pie dishes like I do with beans. So the beautiful fractal pattern of the seeds above became this:
Raspberries are continuing to reward us, though the canes have finally stopped flowering. Still lots of unripe ones.
But the big show this week came from the community garden plot The Kitchen Goddess shares with her mother. The two of them dug 17 pounds of sweet potatoes, and pulled a dozen leeks.
Flowers are all that's left in their plot now.
That's all for this week. According to at least one forecast, we will get a killing frost, maybe by Wednesday night. So it will be a scramble to harvest the rest of the peppers and eggplants. The tomatoes won't even be worth it. Thanks for reading, and thanks once again to Dave at HappyAcres.blog for hosting Harvest Monday.
You've got some great looking goodies. Squash and raspberries and sweet potatoes, just the stuff of dreams from my garden. I grew some dwarf sunflowers this year but the seeds are so small that I left them for the birds (amazing that the rodents haven't attacked those!).
ReplyDeleteThanks, Michelle. Dwarf sunflowers are so pretty.
DeleteWow on those sweet potatoes! I suspect they're not the easiest thing to grow in your area. And that is a beautiful head on the sunflower. Birds always get to mine first when I grow them.
ReplyDeleteYes, they grow here. I'm amazed that the small, weak slips turn into something good.
DeleteLook at those zinnias! They seem to do best late in the season. The sweet potatoes look wonderful. I loved the raspberries we grew in Massachusetts. The flavor of those grown out here are not as intensely raspberry. Ours only produced in July and early August. Wonderful that you have them this late.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing you're still getting big tomatoes and zucchini this late in the season. And that's a great showing for your sweet potatoes. The tubers are nice and fat. It sounds like you're preparing well for the coming hard freeze. When I lived further north fall always seemed to be gone in a blink, but springs were always glorious.
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