The bounty continues!

Do you like the pictures? They give you just a little glimpse of what the gardens are like this year.

Right now, everywhere you look there seems to be something that needs to be picked. The okra is growing like crazy. It's well over our heads. Mom & Bonnie picked it again this evening & they said they had to reach way up to get it. I'll be bringing lots of it to the market this weekend.

The cucumbers are all finished now. Danny pulled up the last of the vines this evening & took down the trellis & t-posts. He tilled up the whole area around it & started hilling up new rows to get ready to plant more lettuce & spinach.

The tomatoes are still producing quite well, although certain varieties seem to be about finished for the year. We have a new variety that started producing this week. It's a yellow cherry tomato that came up on it's own in the front flower bed. They're delicious, I'm hoping to be able to bring some to the market Saturday. (If I can keep the kids from eating them all.) That makes our 18th variety of heirloom tomatoes for this year.

Are you hungry for zucchini? The new row of plants started producing last week. There are several varieties & they look really pretty together. I'll bring extra of my Zucchini Muffin Mix this weekend to go along with it. (I ran out last weekend, sorry if you missed out.)

The cantaloupes & honeydews are gone now, but the watermelons are going strong. They were all so delicious this year. Mom was telling us this evening that she just heard you have to have really good soil to get a good tasting melon. Since this is the first time we've planted in that particular garden plot, we feel very appreciative that it was so rich & provided us & so many others with such wonderful melons. We thought our favorite variety of watermelon was the White Wonder, but tonight Bonnie talked us into trying a Sugar Baby. It's a red variety & every bit as delicious.

The amaranth is beginning to flower. It's not as tall as we expected, but I guess that will make it easier to harvest. We have to wait until after the first frost.

Our second biggest producer right now is the beans. The Fortex green beans and the Chinese Long Red Noodle Beans are way up over the 8ft trellis & are covered in beans as well as blooms. The new rows of bush beans are all covered with blooms & should begin producing any day now.

All the flowers in the front flower beds and in the garden are covered in bright, beautiful flowers. The zinnias are a rainbow of color & the cosmos is a whole variety of pastel pinks & purples, now that the onslaught of Japanese Beetles is over. The lack of beetles has also allowed the Marigolds in the gardens to break out in blooms. They are a bright splash of color among all the shades of green in the gardens.

Fall is in the air now, I'll keep you posted as things continue to change.