Harvest time!

Time for a garden update, and all I can say is WOW! Here is my garden project this year.
I have been picking for about three weeks now. It started with a few yellow squash, then a few zucchini, a few peppers and eggplant every few days. Now, I get bucket loads of the stuff every day. This has been a pretty good growing year. I took a quick trip to Ohio to set some stands and camera's, and do some other work, over the weekend, and missed picking for two days. When I got back, the first thing I did was hit the garden to see what I had to be picked. What is on this table represents most of what I found...some has already been given away and cooked for dinner.
We have been eating fresh vegetable dishes for a few weeks now, and I am fortunate that my wife and kids really enjoy the produce. For dinner tonight, it was yellow squash, zucchini, peppers, a few pieces of left-over chicken chunked up, and grilled hot Italian venison sausage, topped with fresh tomato slices and grated parmesian cheese. The vegetables (minus the tomatoes) were sauted in garlic and olive oil, the chicken, (already cooked) was added just before they were done. The sausage was grilled, then sliced into chunks. All the ingredients were placed into baking dishes, topped with sliced tomatoes, and parmesian cheese, then finished in the oven for about 15 minutes. There was plenty left, and it will be served again tomorrow with some garlic bread.

I am about to run into some serious problems though...the green beans have been only sparodic so far, but they are about to come on in full force. This is a picture of just one plant, and I have 4 rows of plants like this. I will be picking two, 5 gallon buckets of beans every three days by the end of the week.

I also have not hit the peak of the egg plant, or cucumbers yet, and the squash are just now at their peak, with plenty of growing left to do. Tomatoes will be heavy this year, but not until August, and I have a few hundred of them hanging on the 8 plants I planted. My peppers have not peaked yet, and the canteloupe and watermellon have only begun. I have probably 75+ canteloupe on the vines, twice that many watermelons.





I have a dozen nice pumpkins too. Overall, it's been a great growing season, and now the work of picking the produce before it rots on the vine begins.