The Joys (!) of Harvesting (Part 2)

Hey, this is getting to be like work! I have canned 20 pints of tomatoes so far, no end in sight! I have given away bushels of the little things, hack my way through the vegetation to find even more on the ground! Help! I am getting lost in the jungle!

Move over to the bean patch to escape. Oh no! Every single one of them little seeds I planted in June have sprouted, and every plant has grown at least 40 beans! I have to stand on my head to harvest them. Maybe that is why I have been so dizzy the past couple weeks? We have eaten about a pound of green beans every day for the past couple of weeks, I froze about 10 lbs this morning, and when I checked on them later, there were about 5 lbs that I had overlooked! The tendrils are reaching for me! Jill and the beanstalk!

Time to escape to the carrot patch. Whew. At least these don't grab me. The baby carrot seeds I planted early spring all grew. Pull one up: oh no! These aren't baby carrots! They are more than a foot long and about 4" around! They were in the ground too long. Time to whip out my carrot cake recipe. Whew. Problem is, none of us like carrot cake. Especially not when I have about 20 lbs of overgrown carrots. Oh well, stew is always good. Maybe some month it will cool down enough to feel like making it.

What a nightmare! I plant a vegetable garden for occasional fresh veggies and salads, not a jungle! But what a yummy way to go.

Seriously, I have never had such an abundant harvest. I did a whole lot of things different this year, but I am not sure what exactly went so right to make it all produce so lavishly. But I planted as though I were going to be hit (as almost always) by terrible pests, disease, and spray residue from neighbor's lawn. None of that happened this year. Healthy, thriving, lush growth (thanks to twice weekly sprinkling). Hundreds more birds in the neighborhood this year than any other, several new toads also have effectively destroyed the major insect pests.

What a delightful and delicious dilemma! We should ALL have such problems :~) You'll greatly appreciate all your hard work in the wintertime when you utilize frozen veggies out of your freezer to use in stews, soups, chili, and spaghetti! Happy Eatin'!

A bountiful harvest , it is a heavenly reward !

Congratulation ! ! !

Enjoy your harvest

Look out for the monster zucchini........ It sounds like you must have done a lot of things right. Make lots of notes and try them all again.

MMMmmmmm, the first autumn raspberries were ripe yesterday. Sun-warmed fresh raspberries are so good -- I do love the Fall Gold ones. If only there were enough ripe that I could bear to share any ;P

The alpine strawberries are getting good fruit again after the terrible heat, they might be worth eating in a couple more days.

The concord grapes are ripening. Yuck. Oh well, I grow them for others to enjoy, like so many other things I grow.

All sounds very inviting. Believe it or not we are still waiting to get enough tomatoes to can. All the ones so far we have had to pick from the vines and leave in the sun to ripen. From 20 plants we have gotten maybe 1 1/2 doz. that finally ripened. There are plenty of green ones on the vines, but just not ripening and here it is September already. First time this has ever happened to us here in sunny MD.
Did put up a lot of corn earlier in the season and of course green peppers.
I've never gotten fall raspberries, lucky you, ours ripen in the early spring and then gone till next year!
Send some of those concords over here and we'll make some wine LOL!