Zucchini harvest by month

Monthly tally:

June = 4

July = 51

August = 54

September = 22

October = 7

Total = 138

Hollyhock flower(seed) branches placed into yard for birds

Took the long (very long!) hollyhock flower stems off the front plants and put them into the yard in three spots along the west bed, supported by tomato cages (and most cut in half so that they stay upright).  The house sparrows had been eating them when they were out front, so hopefully someone will enjoy them in the yard as well.

So, if holly hocks spring up in the yard next year, this is why!

138 (!!!!) zucchinis harvested this year! (final one was yesterday)

A record year for me!  That's 138 zucchinis out of a total of 8 or 9 plants (3 or 4 of which were late starts).  It would have been a few more had I not been away camping when the first ones flowered.

That's 15 to 17 zucchinis per plant!

The freezer is certainly well stocked with zucchini soups and sauces.

The varieties were Golden Glory and Eight Ball.  I loved them both, they both seemed to do equally well.

The 7 tulled zucchinis had zero issues with SVB.  Will definitely tulle most of my zukes again in future years.

SVB found inside the last of the zucchini plants (pulled today)

Since the plant was clearly killed by frost overnight, pulled it out.  Actually was going to leave the root in the ground to decompose, but when I cut the vine lo and behold there was a borer grub inside.  So, pulled the whole plant out.  Found a second borer (a big one) and there may have been more, I didn't check too closely.

This would explain why the plant hadn't done much lately.

This plant was one of the few zucchinis that were never tulled, so it's not surprising.  Actually it's more surprising that it lasted this long.

First frost was last night (first in my yard)

Alas, the one zucchini plant I hadn't pulled yet was clearly struck down by frost last night, as was one of the volunteer ground cherry plants.

The zinnias and stevias are still looking good -- as surprisingly is the buckwheat (and of course the cool-weather things like chard, celery, and carrots).

There had been definite frosts outside of the yard (with ice on cars, on the grass on the hill, etc.), but until now the yard seemed to have escaped it.

House sparrows eating basil seeds! (dried on plant)

Must be quite the flavour punch compared to millet!!

~8 bags of leaves shredded and put into yard

To shred them:  Used the big powerful whipper snipper, in basement (since noisy), leaves into green bin then "blendering" them with the whipper snipper.  Would be easier/better with wider bin like garbage can, but it still worked.

Eye goggles, face mask, and gloves.

Most of the leaves went into the beds (dug in); some went onto the grass paths.

Some left over will probably keep in basement (in garbage bag) for the winter.

Song sparrows, house sparrows, and junco in yard at same time

Fun!

Green bean harvest and meal -- OMG delicious!! [but big ones have strings]

Harvested most of the rest of the green beans I planted for a fall crop.  They were quite small, but, weather isn't great and needed enough to add to the harvest a few days ago to make it worth steaming up.

So -- steamed them up for a few minutes, and had them with margarine and salt -- and WOW it was actually delicious!!  For being so unappealing raw -- what a transformation.  Makes me totally want to grow them again next year!

[Edited on 31 Oct 2022, after eating the final mini-harvest from a few days ago, to say that the full-sized bean pods have two strings each which are inedible -- so I just stripped them off while eating.  Might be worth looking for stringless type?? (if that exists) Or consider harvesting before full-size.]

Wow!! 2 pounds of potatoes from the a/c corner with the 7 runtiest seed potatoes, no hilling! Total 6 lbs potatoes

What a great surprise!  I never would have imagined a solid 2 pounds of potatoes from this little corner, especially since it was only the runtiest seed potatoes that were planted here.

Oh -- and, I did no hilling or troughing or anything there -- just plunked them in and covered them up, and it was only ~4-5" of good soil.  Amazing!

That makes a total of 6 pounds of fingerling potatoes from the $27 worth of seed potatoes (3 packages).  Thats... $4.50 a pound :D

Holy longgg roots on the Jasper tomato!!! Will definitely grow again -- did great

Removed the plant today as part of cleaning up (it was still going strong) and WOW those roots!!!  At least one was at least 3 feet long!!!

Will definitely grow this variety again.  Yes it had early blight, but it didn't bother the plant at all, and it was completely unaffected by the late blight that rapidly took out all the other tomato plants a few weeks ago.

Plus it grow so tall!  It was in the biggest tomato cage, which it definitely outgrew, but fortunately it was right next to the vertical structure so it meshed itself onto that and grew, grew, and grew.

Leaf collection began tonight

Love my rake, makes this so much easier.  

2

House sparrows eating hollyhock seeds!

Neat!  There are certainly hundreds if not thousands of seeds on the hollyhocks in front of the house.  Saw them from the kitchen window, right there eating seeds.  Fun!

First fall beans harvested! Skinny but I'll take them -- 65 days to harvest

The beans sowed on August 4th (or rather, the few that sprouted/grew) have been struggling with these cold nights as have the cucumbers, but today I noticed there were actually some harvestable-sized ones!  And with tonight's forecast of -1, figured I'd harvest those.  Still some really small ones on the plant, will leave those in case the frost holds off...

Last (probably) cuke harvested -- for total of ~5 or 6 fall cuke harvest

This cuke could have used another week or so to finish filling out, but more cold nights happening so harvested now just in case.

A couple of other cukes took, but with the cold nights are growing soooooo slowly, so I'm not sure if they'll make it.

I'd say my fall cuke experiment was a success!  A sparse/limited success, but still worthwhile.  The vines were never very healthy, but they produced.

Parsley harvest -- and yes only grow curly parsley in future too

Pulled a nice bagful and made tabbouleh for the first time -- quite tasty mixed with homemade hummus!

The curly parsley was perfect this year -- I hadn't grown flat leaf parsley this year because I've found it goes to seed way too soon.  No need to grow flat leaf in future.

Juncos! On roof while I was in yard. Surely they'll come back?

First time this fall seeing juncos in the yard!  Bag timing as I was out there so they didn't come down, but hopefully they'll be back.

Frost on car, but not in yard -- everything's still standing (including cucumbers, zukes, and Jasper tomato)

^^^

Cold nights but no frost yet; not covering anything

Has gone down to as low as +1, +2 range (per forecast, not necessarily here).  We've started a nice week of sunny warm days (mid/high teens), so hopefully the cukes / Jasper tomato will be able to withstand the cold nights and keep going a little longer.  Not bothering to cover anything though, so come what may.

Radish harvested (from August 15th sowing) -- yup, I still don't like radishes

Too darn spicy!