I'm feeling a little weary...

Maybe it's the summer heat. Or maybe it's because all of the garden work from this year is catching up with me. Or maybe it's because the life cycle for a number of my veggies is over. My cucumbers are dead. They really put out a huge amount of fruit for a few months there.

I harvested the last of my banana fingerling potatoes this weekend. They're not really suited for long term storage, so we'll be eating our way through these in the next month or so I would imagine. Next year I'm going to plant these again, and also some suited specifically for storage.


I have been canning tomatoes like a mad-woman. We moved this operation out to the grill on the deck, since running an electric eye full of boiling water on the stove for 85+ minutes just makes the house unbearably hot. I think that the pressure of keeping up with processing all these tomatoes has worn on me a little over the last few weeks. I'm not complaining...just taking a pause.

I've pulled up a few more sweet potatoes here and there, but I don't want to pull up more than we'll eat until I have to. I think I can leave them in the ground for awhile. The bush beans took a hiaitus, and then started producing pretty well again. My yellow wax beans are getting about ready to pick. My carmen and anaheim peppers are finally getting ripe on the plants. Each one has about a dozen beautiful peppers at least. And you're not going to believe this, but I actually got a yellow bell pepper to ripen on the plant! It didn't happen until the other 6 or so on there rotted and dropped off. Sigh.

My tomato plants, while still putting out tomatoes, seem to have slowed a bit too. My orange russian has developed a bit of blossom end rot. This time I treated with bone meal. It seems to be okay today. There's tomatoes on there that aren't affected. The yellow taxi is gasping its last breath. Not sure what happened to it, but it sure put out a HUGE amount of fruit, all within about a month, and then kind of shrunk up and petered out.

I am picking up several canteloupe a day now. I finally had to start pulling them when they were slip ripe (will pop off the vine with a little pressure) rather than just picking them up when they've already fallen off the vine, because they were getting TOO ripe.

And finally, let me introduce you to the new love of my life, my beautiful, big, healthy, multiple-blooming hansel eggplant! It is really thriving in a pot on the deck. About a week or so ago I fed it some tomato tone, and shortly afterwards it began to bloom. I'll do that about once a month I think. It just looks so lovely and healthy, and when it rains its beautiful large leaves cup up to hold the water....I'll have eggplant yet if it's the last thing I do this summer!

The fall garden spot is all tilled up and ready to receive. The next thing I need to do is get the manure compost. Most of what I'm planting will go in as seed. My broccoli, kale and brussel sprouts seedlings all petered out. Just another thing around here that's feeling TIRED. Other than harvesting, I'm kind of just resting up until I get my second wind to do my fall planting this weekend or next, at the latest.