Winding Down

August has caught up to us.  Over the past week or two, the garden has succumbed to the normal garden diseases.  My Dunja zucchini finally got Mildew. And Late Blight arrived in my gorgeous Tomato Jungle so now it looks like everyone else's tomato patch.

The Black Beans are reaching the end of their lives and looking pretty ragged.

This Bean Bed is two weeks behind

The bean hulls are beginning to dry and look papery.  At this point they will pop open and release their beans so I'm paroling the beds and beginning to pick as they reach the right stage.

Oh Melon Patch you were so beautiful in your younger days!

But we have your melons now and all good things must come to an end. 

We are enjoying wonderful sweet cantaloupe for breakfast and snacks.  The advantage to small melons is that they are single serving size.  I'm not sure what we would have done if a half dozen 6# melons ripened all on one day.

Yup, there's the tomato bed in its old age.  What a mess.

But it is still producing gorgeous fruit.

This Prosperosa Eggplant and Blue Beauty tomato were my dinner yesterday.
Grilled Eggplant Parmigiana Hero

But not everyone is showing their age.  The carrots are in the prime of their lives, and the bush beans down the center are growing well.  I am relying on these for freezer beans.  I only have about 25% of what I need in the freezer.

And the second planting of cucumbers which replaced the lettuce in Mid-July is absolutely AMAZING.  They are planning on taking over the world.

I am getting beautiful, long, fully pollinated cukes.

But in their enthusiasm the cucumbers are being a bit thuggish,  The purple bush beans have climbed enough to be holding their own in there but I think I am going to move these lettuce babies before they get too stunted.

There is one lone cucumber beetle that I haven't had the heart to kill.  He's helping the Bumble Bees pollinate. 

And they've been working overtime on the cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.  We lost our hive of honey bees to the brutal winter and no new swarm has found the bee tree.  Fortunately we have a good population of Bumbles.

The sweet potatoes are loving the recent heat.  I hope we get as good a result from them as we did the regular potatoes.

I made the decision to pull the "everbearing" strawberries.  I had those plants for five or six years and they were pretty tired.  I amended the soil and it is ready for new June Bearing plants next spring.  I think I'll put the lettuce babies in here for fall.