That bloated, green thing you see is my last zucchini. It went into a very delicious Chocolate Zucchini Bundt Cake that didn't last more than 48 hours! The bottom of the basket is filled with basil. I cut down all eight of the plants and got a huge bag-full. I made three batches of pesto for the freezer and still have an abundance left in the fridge for cooking! I may dry some more, but I really have quite a lot from drying batches throughout the summer. I have LOVED my basil this year, but next year will keep to only 4 plants.
We had success with our jalapeno plant. You can see some green and also red jalapenos. We've had green all year, not sure why we had a few red ones this week. I need to research that.
Finally, finally, finally, I was able to harvest some tomatoes. These are the first tomatoes that have been picked. There are many more - our tomato cage actually toppled over and we had to reinforce it with a fence stake. Next year we will look into more sturdy cages and I will also plant an Early Girl variety to have some tomatoes earlier in the season.
There is a lone yellow pepper. Notice it is lime green. We haven't had great success with the two bell pepper plants. The yellow pepper plant has many fruits on it, but they don't ever ripen to yellow. I picked this one to see if it will ripen off the vine. The green pepper plant has nary a fruit on it, but it is just as tall and green and lush as the yellow pepper plant. I see flowers on it, so I am hoping we will yet see some peppers.
Notice those wonderful carrots? I grew em! I had so much anticipation to see what these looked like and they turned out wonderful. I only pulled out a few - there are many more still in the ground. I had to taste one as soon as we got inside and it was delicious. You can definitely tell a difference from the grocery store carrots. Crisp and crunchy and fresh. Yum! I will have quite a few to harvest and am researching how to store them. Some people say to bury them in a bucket of sand in a cool place (root cellar). Also, you can slice them, blanch and freeze them. I may try both methods just to see. In the meantime, they are in my fridge being snacked on and used in recipes. I see carrot cupcakes in our future!
Last AND least are my poor shallots. I was so excited to harvest these, but they were a total bust. They didn't grow any bigger than the cloves I planted in May. I harvested them when the tops fell over but was so disappointed to see their small size. Not sure what went wrong here...
I may go back and add some historical shots of the garden over the summer. I took pictures, but just didn't blog them. It will help me next year to know what and when I did things this first go-round.
As for the fall - I planted some lettuce where the zucchini was and some more green onions to the green onion square. I also purchased two blueberry bushes and four more broccoli plants. Fingers crossed, my garden will continue to grow until the frosts shut it down!
