Late Summer Wrap Up - Without A Leg To Stand On

I have been laid up with a broken ankle for the past week so the Garden is in Tim's hands.  He has been dedicated to watering and dead-heading and advising what needs to be picked.  He even helped my pick beans tonight since we are up to our ears in beans!

The most beautiful purple beans ever

We also have a bed of cucumbers which is battling downy mildew but producing some nice straight cucumbers.

A new bed of GORGEOUS bush beans.
Remind me not to bother to plant beans before July 15th ever again.

A bed of young lettuce and old carrots

Waiting on the bell peppers to ripen

 That makes three vacant beds but one is still harboring undug potatoes.  I also have my fall garden bed prepared and am saving lettuce seedlings to plant there where I can keep them under a frost cover long after the main garden is closed down for the winter.

The fall garden bed with a young zucchini plant
and the frost frame ready to shelter lettuce

The second half of the lettuce babies ready for transplanting

 My strawberry bed is thriving after being renovated in July.  I'm glad I was up to date on garden projects.  All my major cleaning projects were done and things only need maintenance.

The strawberry bed

My carting home of crysanthemums was interrupted after the first trunk load which was one huge glorious Five Alarm Red mum which BARELY fit in my car and garnered compliments while it sat in the office parking lot behind my car.  "Where did you buy that mum?!"  No sense in spending the money on half a dozen more if it is going to be difficult to get out there and enjoy them.

My Barlow Jap tomato plant produced 26 large tomatoes this year.  I don't know if that is a record because I've never kept track before but I can say that the plant obviously had so many fruit that I began counting them as I picked them.  I also had the opportunity to take some back to their home town of Shelbyville KY and give them to my Kentucky family as a special treat.  They were a BIG hit!

The loaded tomato plant before they began to ripen

My ankle ought to be mended in time for planting this year's batch of fall bulbs.  In the mean time, my mother is canning my extra tomatoes, Elsie our Amish friend has been recruited to handle the wild plum jelly, and the apple orchard is in shape and ready for apple picking time.  

If I was going to fall off of my high horse, this was an OK time to do that.

And here is the cause of my broken ankle.
An unplanned (and poorly orchestrated) dismount from Mr. William Pendleton