End of September Garden Harvest

My garden is still in harvest mode, this late in September!  When I checked on my tomato plants, I found this huge caterpillar...

It's a tobacco hornworm, and it will eat through tomatoes at a voracious rate.  Three tomatoes were a loss because of this little booger.  It's not so little, either--it's huge.  It also has some decent camouflage--I didn't realize I was taking pictures of its rear end until I looked it up and noticed the red spike on the back end.  Little stinker.  I broke off the branch it was hanging out on, and set it on the picnic table for a few extra pictures, then left that dude to fend for itself.  Not in my garden, bro!

The Alpine strawberries were still producing, as you can see below, and I got a nice handful for a morning bowl of oatmeal tomorrow.

Harvest:  a nice colander of Garden Peach (yellow) tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes (still going strong!), a few plump jalapenos, a handful of Alpine strawberries, and a nice bunch of green beans.  You can see I'm going to have to work on harvesting the parsley, too, as it's surrounding my colander like a jungle!

I'm thankful that the Lord blessed this year's harvest.  We may not have much money while Fernando's business is struggling to get off the ground, but we have fresh food for now and for a little while, too.  There's nothing like real food from your own garden!


Back to life,
Christine

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Packing Up the Garden

October 22.

Well, it was time to "pack up" the garden for winter.  A little late with the harvest, but the Lord was gracious and we were able to the bulk of the work done.

Sweet red peppers to pick.

Parsley to cut, chop, and freeze.

Every tomato larger than a golf ball gets picked!

Sweet green peppers.

After the harvest, it was time to get all the Velcro tape off the plants.  I save this each year for the next year.  This is the tape that holds the drooping plants up against the stakes.

Joseph was diligent to make sure every tomato that could be picked was picked.

Pulling up stakes.

A rare picture of me--working instead of taking pictures, lol.

The tomato harvest on my counter--wow!

Those tomatoes will slowly ripen, and we'll get to use them in sauce, salsa, and sandwiches.  Yum!


Back to life,
Christine

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October Garden Date

October 1.

Fernando doesn't really have an interest in our garden, except maybe to eat the food once it's on the table.  I just found out his dad had a green thumb, too!  My dearie is a sweetheart, though, and willingly helps me if he can.  And today he did just that.  :)

We watered everything once we were done harvesting, because it looked like we'd still have more to harvest with our mild October weather so far.

The overview:

Here's the harvest of jalapeños on my kitchen counter.

A few days later, I pickled and canned them with some of my garden garlic!

Beautiful tomatoes for autumn spaghetti sauce!

Back to life,
Christine

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Mid September Garden

September 18.

Have a look at my garden as we start to turn toward autumn...

Below are my pepper plants, sweet and green, and jalapenos beyond.  They're still producing, especially the Giant Marconi sweet bells--those plants are crazy!

My tomato plants are nearing the end of their life span, but they're still producing.  I'll get a nice harvest today.

Garden Peach tomatoes.

Tomatoes on the left, dormant strawberry plants on the right.

On to my squash plants!  I planted both butternut and acorn squash, though I learned later than you should plant them next to each other, as they'll be cross-pollinated.  They're still producing well, though, so I don't mind a little mingling in my garden.  ;)

The overview, as seen from our pool deck:

Back to life,
Christine

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